Vegetation Cover and Biomass
[Shoshany, 2008, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Processing in the Assessment and Monitoring of Land Degradation and Desertification (RGLDD) Book, Taylor & Francis]
 

Modes of bio-physical transition between the shrub-dominated and desert fringe communities were revealed for North to South and West to East climatic transects  in Israel. This was achieved by combining vegetation cover data derived from applying remote sensing techniques on seasonal Landsat TM imagery with field surveys of cover and biomass.

  
 

Shoshany, M., and Svoray, T., 2002,

Multi-date adaptive spectral unmixing and its application for the analysis of Ecosystems’ transition along a climatic gradient.

Remote Sensing of the Environment. 81, 1-16

 		  

Sternberg, M., and Shoshany, M., 2001,

Bio-physical slope related differences in Mediterranean woody formations: a comparison of a semiarid and an 

 arid  sites in Israel. 

J. of Ecological Research, 16, 335-345

 

 

Vegetation Cover and Biomass along climat

              (click to enlarge)
A new methodology is presented which uses phenological differences between shrubs, dwarf shrubs and herbs to map fractions of each at subpixel scales. To account for seasonal differences, Landsat images acquired at the end of winter, and at the beginning and end of summer were analyzed. Differentiation between elementary vegetation and soil cover fractions was achieved using well known multi-spectral unmixing technique in an adaptive way. In this way, an image based zonal partition facilitated spectral end-members selection according to seasonal variations and to climatic / biotic / lithologic transitions.



              (click to enlarge)
  

 

  New maps (above) of spatial changes in vegetation cover fractions along the climatic gradient were produced. An important element of the new data relates to the distribution of dwarf shrubs in general and of Sacroproterium spinosium in particular. These dwarf shrubs are of major ecological significance in countries of the eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin due to their rapid invasion into abandoned fields and burnt areas.  		  

Dominant tree and shrub species were measured using allometric parameters of

area and volume, and representative branches were cut and weighed. Species studied were Quercus calliprinos, Phillyrea latifolia, Pistacia lentiscus, Cistus creticus, Coridothymus capitatus, and Sarcopoterium

spinosum.

Characteristic pio-physical properties change between sites and slope aspects are presented in the figure below

 

Vegetation Cover and Biomass along climat 

 

              (click to enlarge)

Vegetation Cover and Biomass along climat 
              (click to enlarge)