Remote sensing evaluation of afforestration [sic] versus natural re-vegetation of abandoned crop-lands in central Spain
2009
Ivanov, E.
Land abandonment is an outcome of a wider process of cropland marginalization. It leads to an increase of biomass and naturalness of the vegetation, but also to increased risks of wildfires, erosion, and to loss of habitats for species that are characteristic of agro-ecosystems. This process is addressed in Spain, where the Afforestation Programme of Cropland has converted a total of 801693 ha. This study focuses on the evaluation of the afforestation process in Central Spain. Remote Sensing is used to register cropland abandonment, natural re-vegetation on abandoned croplands, and afforestation over the last four decades. Both object-oriented classification technique on LANDSAT (TM, 1991 ETM+, 2002) imageries and photo-interpretation of aerial imagery (1956, 1957 and 2002) were utilized for detecting changes over time. Present status is validated with the on-line database SIG-PAC of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The positive and negative effects of land use change are identified by incorporating NDVI and indicators produced by spectral mixture analysis into the object-oriented classification procedure for the imageries of 1991 and 2002. Results indicate that the rate of vegetation recovery is higher for the abandoned land, whereas for soil conservation afforestation performs better.
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