Vegetation Dynamics and Climatological Drivers in Ethiopia at the Turn of the Century

• Main Authors: Carly Muir, Jane Southworth, Reza Khatami, Hannah Herrero, Berkay Akyapı
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
• Series: Remote Sensing
• Subjects: vegetation dynamics; spatial panel model; global environmental change
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/16/3267

Global change, particularly climate change, poses a risk of altering vegetation composition and health. The consequences manifest throughout Earth’s system as a change in ecosystem services and socioecological stability. It is therefore critical that vegetation dynamics are monitored to establish baseline conditions and detect shifts. Africa is at high risk of environmental change, yet evaluation of the link between climate and vegetation is still needed for some regions. This work expands on more frequent local and multinational scale studies of vegetation trends by quantifying directional persistence (DP) at a national scale for Ethiopia, based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) between 2000 and 2016. The DP metric determines cumulative change in vegetation greenness and has been applied to studies of ecological stability and health. Secondary analysis utilizing panel regression methodologies is carried out to measure the effect of climate on NDVI. Models are developed to consider spatial dependence by including fixed effects and spatial weights. Results indicate widespread cumulative declines in NDVI, with the greatest change during the dry season and concentrated in northern Ethiopia. Regression analyses suggest significant control from climatic variables. However, temperature has a larger effect on NDVI, which contrasts with findings of some previous studies.