Measuring regreening in a heterogeneous landscape
Measurement of the effect of regreening efforts can be done by using an index for the amount of green vegetation, and a measure of recovery. For the amount of green vegetation, an index such as the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) or Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) can be used, depending on the type of vegetation. As a measure of recovery Delta Index Regrowth (DeltaIR) and R80P can be used.
The study site for this MSc project is Buursezand, a nature area about 15 km from Enschede. In this area, several local measures have been taken to rewet the area to make it more drought-resilient and to restore a heterogeneous landscape that can provide a habitat to several rare species.
This MSc topic is related to the PEOLPLE-ECCO project on use of Earth observation for nature conservation and the COMBINED project
Delta IR quantifies the absolute change in the spectral index over the assessed time period while R80P quantifies a pixel’s spectral index value at the end of the assessed time period relative to the value of a reference site. The question for this research topic is how well this method can be used in a heterogeneous area.
Include how well the possibilities of assessing regreening can be linked to requirements for reporting in the framework of policies guiding nature restoration.