Evaluating Several Vegetation Indices Derived from Sentinel-2 Imagery for Quantifying Localized Overgrazing in a Semi-Arid Region of South Africa

Rangeland monitoring aims to determine whether grazing management strategies meet the goals of sustainable resource utilization. The development requires an understanding manner in which animals utilize available vegetation. In this study, we made use livestock tracking, situ observations and Sentinel-2 imagery make rangeland scale vegetation conditions a semi-arid environment, better understand spatial relationships between sheep movement patterns. We hypothesized that graze more selectively under low stocking rates—resulting localized overgrazing. also assessed importance image resolution, as it was assumed effects will be best explained by higher resolution imagery. results showed tend congregate along drainage lines where soils are deeper. findings demonstrate how analysis remotely sensed data can provide landscape-scale overview This study illustrates high-resolution normalized difference index (NDVI) used tool variability productive areas across Upper Karoo rangelands identify preferred areas.