Desertification-A global monitoring approach

In English This paper presents the first results of an ongoing study on the use of the NOAA AVHRR based GIMMS 8 km global NDVI data set (1981-2004) for desertification monitoring. Our monitoring and assessment was carried out on a regional-global scale. Time series of NDVI and standardized annual NDVI anomalies (1981-2004) were compared with corresponding 0.5 degrees spatial resolution gridded annual rainfall, 1901-2002 and with 2.5 degrees gridded annual rainfall (1979-2005) and corresponding standardized anomalies (z-scores).

The study so far was carried out within the frames of the Integrated Project DeSurvey (A Surveillance System for Assessing and Monitoring Desertification; 2005-2010), FP6. The study is still in progress.

The areas under study include the Mediterranean basin with Southern Europe and Northern Africa, the Sahel (East and West Sahel), major parts of Southern Africa, China and the drylands of South America, i.e. important parts of the reported desertification prone areas of the world.