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Normalized Difference Vegetation Vigour Index: A New Remote Sensing Approach to Biodiversity Monitoring in Oil Polluted Regions

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-06-12, 10:38 authored by Nkeiruka Nneti Onyia, Heiko Balzter, Juan-Carlos Berrio
Biodiversity loss remains a global challenge despite international commitment to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity. Biodiversity monitoring methods are often limited in their geographical coverage or thematic content. Furthermore, remote sensing-based integrated monitoring methods mostly attempt to determine species diversity from habitat heterogeneity somewhat reflected in the spectral diversity of the image used. Up to date, there has been no standardized method for monitoring biodiversity against the backdrop of ecosystem or environmental pressures. This study presents a new method for monitoring the impact of oil pollution an environmental pressure on biodiversity at regional scale and presents a case study in the Niger delta region of Nigeria. It integrates satellite remote sensing and field data to develop a set of spectral metrics for biodiversity monitoring. Using vascular plants of various lifeforms observed on polluted and unpolluted (control) locations, as surrogates for biodiversity, the normalized difference vegetation vigour index (NDVVI) variants were estimated from Hyperion wavelengths sensitive to petroleum hydrocarbons and evaluated for potential use in biodiversity monitoring schemes. The NDVVI ranges from 0 to 1 and stems from the presupposition that increasing chlorophyll absorption in the green vegetation can be used as a predictor to model vascular plant species diversity. The performances of NDVVI variants were compared to traditional narrowband vegetation indices (NBVIs). The results show strong links between vascular plant species diversity and primary productivity of vegetation quantified by the chlorophyll content, vegetation vigour and abundance. An NDVVI-based model gave much more accurate predictions of species diversity than traditional NBVIs (R-squared and prediction square error (PSE) respectively for Shannon’s diversity = 0.54 and 0.69 for NDVVIs and 0.14 and 0.9 for NBVIs). We conclude that NDVVI is a superior remote sensing index for monitoring biodiversity indicators in oil-polluted areas than traditional NBVIs.

Funding

This study was financed partly by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria, the National Center for Earth Observation (NCEO) and the Center for Landscape and Climate Research (CLCR), University of Leicester, United Kingdom. The authors are grateful to the traditional ruler of Kporghor community and the members of the Youth leadership for their support during the field campaign.

History

Citation

Remote Sensing, 2018, 10 (6), 897

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/School of Geography, Geology and the Environment/GIS and Remote Sensing

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

Remote Sensing

Publisher

MDPI

issn

2072-4292

eissn

2072-4292

Acceptance date

2018-06-05

Copyright date

2018

Available date

2018-06-12

Publisher version

http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/6/897

Notes

The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/6/897/ s1. Supplementary A: Kporghor Vegetation Survey Data; Supplementary B: Kporghor Soil Properties Data; Supplementary C: SPAD Chlorophyll Data.

Language

en

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