Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-15-2009

Keywords

Russia, Kazakhstan, MODIS, NDVI, drought, agricultural reform

Abstract

We present a dual scale trend analysis for characterizing and comparing two contrasting areas of change in Russia and Kazakhstan that lie less than 800 km apart. We selected a global NASA MODIS (moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer) product (MCD43C4 and MCD43A4) at a 0.05◦ (∼5.6 km) and 500 m spatial resolution and a 16-day temporal resolution from 2000 to 2008. We applied a refinement of the seasonal Kendall trend method to the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) image series at both scales. We only incorporated composites during the vegetative growing season which was delineated by start of season and end of season estimates based on analysis of normalized difference infrared index data. Trend patterns on two scales pointed to drought as the proximal cause of significant declines in NDVI in Kazakhstan. In contrast, the area of increasing NDVI trend in Russia was linked through the dual scale analysis with agricultural land cover change. The coarser scale analysis was relevant to atmospheric boundary layer processes, while the finer scale data revealed trends that were more relevant to human decision-making and regional economics.

Publication Title

Environmental Research Letters

Volume

4

Issue

4

Pages

11

Type

text

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

DOI of Published Version

10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045012

Publisher

IOP Publishing Ltd

Rights

© 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Comments

This article was originally published in Environmental Research Letters 4:045012, 2009. Posted with permission.

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