Derivation of pasture biomass in Mongolia from AVHRR-based vegetation health indices

Early drought detection and impact assessment on the amount of pasture biomass are important in Mongolia, whose economy strongly depends on livestock production. The country’s large area and a lack of information on grass availability due to the sparseness of biomass-observing and/or meteorological stations make it difficult to optimize nomadic livestock output in the Mongolian dry climate. The application of a new satellite-based method for drought detection and for assessment of wild biomass in Mongolia was investigated. Measurements of biomass at an experimental station in a semi-dry steppe ecosystem during 1985–1997 were compared with the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR)-based vegetation health (VH) indices. The results showed the indices can be used as proxies for biomass production estimation (biomass anomaly, BA) applying the following equation BA~ 43.201z0.881 VHI (R~0.658).