Evolution of vegetation activity on vegetated, eroded, and erosion risk areas in the central Spanish Pyrenees, using multitemporal Landsat imagery

Abstract

The temporal evolution of vegetation activity on various land cover classes in the Spanish Pyrenees was analyzed. Two time series of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were used, corresponding to March (early spring) and August (the end of summer). The series were generated from Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ images for the period 1984–2007. An increase in the NDVI in March was found for vegetated areas, and the opposite trend was found in both March and August for degraded areas (badlands and erosion risk areas). The rise in minimum temperature and the time variation of the cloud cover during the study period appears to be the most important factors explaining increased NDVI in the vegetated areas. In degraded areas, no climatic or topographic variable was associated with the negative NDVI trend, which may be related to erosion processes taking place in these regions.