A method for Land Degradation Monitoring in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions of Northeastern Jordan Using Landsat images

This study evaluates land degradation in one of the most important natural grazing regions in the northeastern parts of Jordan. It describes a set of techniques that have been used to develop an operational approach that ensures high accuracy and compatibility for detecting and mapping land degradation in the study area. For this purpose, Landsat-TM and Landsat-8 images acquired in May of 2000 and May of 2014, respectively, were used. The two multi-temporal images were geometrically and radiometrically calibrated to each other, and were used for producing spatially- correct maps of environmental changes over time. Land degradation monitoring, particularly in the vegetation coverage, had been done using NDVI image differencing. The histogram of difference image shows that unchanged pixels were centered around the mean, while the changed pixels were located in the tail regions on either side. The NDVI difference image indicated that negative changes in the middle and southern parts of the study area had occurred between 2000 and 2014.