NDVI time series analysis over central China and Mongolia

Land cover and its changes, affecting multiple aspects of the environmental system such as energy balance, biogeochemical cycles, hydrological cycles and the climate system, are regarded as critical elements in global change studies. Especially in arid and semiarid regions, the observation of ecosystem that is sensitive to climate change can improve an understanding of the relationships between climate and ecosystem dynamics. The purpose of this research is analyzing the ecosystem surrounding the Gobi desert in North Asia quantitatively as well as qualitatively more concretely. We used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from SPOT-VEGETATION (VGT) sensor during 1999${\sim}$2007. Ecosystem monitoring of this area is necessary because it is a hot spot in global environment change. This study will allow predicting areas, which are prone to the rapid environmental change. Eight classes were classified and compare with MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) global land cover. The time-series analysis was carried out for these 8 classes. Class-1 and -2 have least amplitude variation with low NDVI as barren areas, while other vegetated classes increase in May and decrease in October (maximum value occurs in July and August). Although the several classes have the similar features of NDVI time-series, we detected a slight difference of inter-annual variation among these classes.