Long-Term Trend of Vegetation in Bundelkhand Region (India): An Assessment Through SPOT-VGT NDVI Datasets

Abstract

Vegetation cover is an important natural resource of the terrestrial ecosystem, and it has significant role in preserving the ecological balance in an area. Analyzing the dynamic pattern of vegetation cover and its trend can be a key to explain any unusual condition of the environment. Bundelkhand, located at the central part of India, has experienced recurrent drought events in last decade, and considering the devastating effects of drought in that region, the present study aims to explore the long-term trend of vegetation using geo-spatial technology. The remote sensing-based SPOT-VGT NDVI data were used to identify the changes in vegetation with time. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) has proven to be a very powerful indicator of global vegetation productivity. In this study, we used linear regression model for evaluating the long-term trend of vegetation considering NDVI as dependable and time as independent variable. Our results showed that there is a varying pattern of vegetation trend and its response to rainfall.