Monitoring Temperature Variation in Rising Small Defunct Volcano on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, Using High-Resolution Sentinel-2 Images

Abstract

Global warming is not an expectation but a reality in the “oreums” (common local name for rising, small defunct volcanoes on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea). The oreums exhibit wide biodiversity. However, their ecology is threatened by its associated climate change and their ecological changes have rarely been monitored or recorded. We used three years of Sentinel-2 image data to generate a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) map of the Geum-oreum area. We found that the NDVI was highly associated with temperature, implying that Sentinel-2 images could be utilized to monitor the temperature variation in the oreums to assist in planning and preparation to conserve their ecosystems before they are jeopardized. The results indicated that the NDVI maps derived from Sentinel-2 images were highly associated with temperature in Geum-oreum. We expect this method could be applied in other regions to detect temperature variation for ecological management planning in large areas (such as forests).