Estimating Spatial and Temporal Trends in Environmental Indices Based on Satellite Data: A Two-Step Approach

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Remote Sensing
• Geospatial Analysis

Background:

• Satellite data provides valuable environmental information.
• Understanding spatial and temporal patterns is crucial for environmental monitoring.
• Existing methods may have limitations in analyzing complex spatio-temporal data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel two-step method for analyzing spatial and temporal patterns in environmental indices using satellite data.
• To evaluate the method's utility in a case study of fractional green vegetation cover.
• To gain insights into long-term environmental trends.

Main Methods:

• A two-step approach involving linear regression coefficient extraction.
• Utilizing boosted regression trees with geographic coordinates as explanatory variables.
• Applying the method to 30 years of satellite-derived fractional green vegetation cover data for Queensland, Australia.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated the utility of the proposed two-step approach.
• Provided insights into spatio-temporal trends of green vegetation cover.
• Analysis conducted over the entire image, decades, and sub-regions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed two-step method is feasible for analyzing satellite-derived indices over space and time.
• Geographic coordinates are effective explanatory variables in this analytical framework.
• The approach offers valuable insights into environmental dynamics.