Detecting Land Degradation in Eastern China Grasslands with Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend analysis (TSS-RESTREND) and GIMMS NDVI_3g Data

Grassland ecosystems in China have experienced degradation caused by natural processes and human activities. Time series segmentation and residual trend analysis (TSS-RESTREND) was applied to grasslands in eastern China. TSS-RESTREND is an extended version of the residual trend (RESTREND) methodology. It considers breakpoint detection to identify pixels with abrupt ecosystem changes which violate the assumptions of RESTREND. With TSS-RESTREND, in Xilingol (111°59′–120°00′E and 42°32′–46°41′E) and Hulunbuir (115°30′–122°E and 47°10′–51°23′N) grassland, 6% and 3% of the area experienced a decrease in greenness between 1984 and 2009, 80% and 73% had no significant change, 5% and 3% increased in greenness, and 9% and 21% were undetermined, respectively. RESTREND may underestimate the greening trend in Xilingol, but both TSS-RESTREND and RESTREND revealed no significant differences in Hulunbuir. The proposed TSS-RESTREND methodology captured both the time and magnitude of vegetation changes. View Full-Text