Assessment of vegetation cover changes and the contributing factors in the Al-Ahsa Oasis using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2024.03.005

Abstract

Abstract:

The abandonment of date palm grove of the former Al-Ahsa Oasis in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia has resulted in the conversion of delicate agricultural area into urban area. The current state of the oasis is influenced by both expansion and degradation factors. Therefore, it is important to study the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation cover for the sustainable management of oasis resources. This study used Landsat satellite images in 1987, 2002, and 2021 to monitor the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation cover in the Al-Ahsa Oasis, applied multi-temporal Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data spanning from 1987 to 2021 to assess environmental and spatiotemporal variations that have occurred in the Al-Ahsa Oasis, and investigated the factors influencing these variation. This study reveals that there is a significant improvement in the ecological environment of the oasis during 1987-2021, with increase of NDVI values being higher than 0.10. In 2021, the highest NDVI value is generally above 0.70, while the lowest value remains largely unchanged. However, there is a remarkable increase in NDVI values between 0.20 and 0.30. The area of low NDVI values (0.00-0.20) has remained almost stable, but the region with high NDVI values (above 0.70) expands during 1987-2021. Furthermore, this study finds that in 1987-2002, the increase of vegetation cover is most notable in the northern region of the study area, whereas from 2002 to 2021, the increase of vegetation cover is mainly concentrated in the northern and southern regions of the study area. From 1987 to 2021, NDVI values exhibit the most pronounced variation, with a significant increase in the “green” zone (characterized by NDVI values exceeding 0.40), indicating a substantial enhancement in the ecological environment of the oasis. The NDVI classification is validated through 50 ground validation points in the study area, demonstrating a mean accuracy of 92.00% in the detection of vegetation cover. In general, both the user’s and producer’s accuracies of NDVI classification are extremely high in 1987, 2002, and 2021. Finally, this study suggests that environmental authorities should strengthen their overall forestry project arrangements to combat sand encroachment and enhance the ecological environment of the Al-Ahsa Oasis.

Key words: Normalized Difference, Vegetation Index (NDVI)Vegetation cover, Ecological, Environment, Land use and land cover (LULC), Urban Expansion, Al-Ahsa Oasis

Walid CHOUARI. Assessment of vegetation cover changes and the contributing factors in the Al-Ahsa Oasis using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2024, 5(1): 100111.

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Year	Area (km²)	Percentage of increased area (%)
1972	7.13
1987	50.46	707.71
2002	85.86	170.15
2021	232.79	271.13

Satellite	Sensor	Date of acquisition	Path/Row	Spatial resolution (m)	Data source
Landsat-5	Thematic Mapper (TM)	7 July 1987	164/042	30	United States Geological Survey (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/)
Landsat-7	TM	16 July 2002	164/042	30
Landsat-8	Operational Land Imager (OLI)	20 July 2021	164/042	30

NDVI class	1987		2002		2021
NDVI class	Area (km²)	Percentage (%)	Area (km²)	Percentage (%)	Area (km²)	Percentage (%)
−1.00-0.00	5.13	0.19	8.03	0.30	1.31	0.05
0.00-0.10	2493.90	93.27	2300.99	86.05	808.68	30.25
0.10-0.20	69.79	2.61	75.16	2.81	1691.12	63.25
0.20-0.30	51.21	1.92	57.29	2.14	76.39	2.86
0.30-0.40	47.17	1.76	41.41	1.55	52.25	1.95
0.40-0.50	5.59	0.21	3.83	0.15	9.68	0.36
0.50-0.60	1.12	0.04	93.60	3.50	2.98	0.11
0.60-0.70	0.00	0.00	93.60	3.50	30.60	1.14
0.70-0.80	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.90	0.03
Total	2673.91	100.00	2673.91	100.00	2673.91	100.00

NDVI class	1987-2002		2002-2021
NDVI class	Area (km²)	Percentage (%)	Area (km²)	Percentage (%)
< -0.30	1.49	0.06	1.10	0.04
-0.30- -0.10	18.67	0.70	17.06	0.64
-0.10-0.10	2624.04	98.13	2631.78	98.42
0.10-0.30	27.45	1.03	22.93	0.86
>0.30	2.26	0.08	1.04	0.04

Year	Area (km²)	Percentage of increased vegetation cover area (%)
1972	119.70
1987	131.60	9.90
2002	135.10	2.70
2021	154.20	14.10