Preparation of Rangeland vegetation cover map and monitoring its changes in drought and wet periods using NDVI MODIS product (Case Study: Southern Rangelands of Yazd Province)

Knowledge of rangeland vegetation characteristics as well as factors affecting it in environmental planning, land management and sustainable development is very important. However, regional and up-to-date maps of pasture vegetation cover are not always available. In this study, in order to plot the vegetation cover percentage of the rangelands and monitor its changes in drought and wet periods, NDVI products of MODIS sensor during the years from 2000 to 2017 with a spatial resolution of 250 m and a 16-day time resolution, and The SPI drought index were used. The study area is the part of the rangelands located in the Southern province of Yazd. In 2013, in order to provide ground truth data, a field work was done to take the sampling rate of vegetation from the rangeland level in the study area. According to the results, the NDVI index has a good ability to map vegetation cover, so the coefficient of determination (R2) between this index and the sample points was 0.71. Based on the results, the average vegetation cover of the studied area was 11.3% during the years 2000 to 2017. The highest and lowest amount of vegetation cover in the study area was in 2000 and 2002, with moderate mild conditions and very severe drought, respectively (14.6% and 9.2% respectively). The most important factors influencing the vegetation cover in the study area are rainfall and drought periods, so that the coefficient of determination (R2) between the SPI drought index and the average vegetation percentage was 0.85. In general, based on the results there is a high potential for assessing and monitoring rangeland vegetation changes using satellite data and remote sensing technique.