Monitoring desertification by remote sensing using the Tasselled Cap transform for long-term change detection

• Published in: Natural hazards (Dordrecht) Vol. 83; no. Suppl 1; pp. 223 - 237
• Main Authors: Zanchetta, Anna, Bitelli, Gabriele, Karnieli, Arnon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.10.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Arid zones; Change detection; Civil Engineering; Climate change; Desertification; Drying; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Environmental Management; Environmental monitoring; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Groundwater basins; Hydrogeology; Landsat; Monitors; Natural Hazards; Original Paper; Parameters; Remote sensing; Remote sensing systems; Satellite imagery; Transforms; Landsat 8 OLI; Azraq Oasis; Tasselled Cap transform; Change Vector Analysis; Change detection; Desertification
• ISSN: 0921-030X; 1573-0840
• DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2342-9

Sensitive areas like oases are threatened by climatic variations and human activities that can catalyze desertification processes. Remote sensing the Earth surface from satellites is a good tool to monitor such types of change through several techniques. In this paper a remote sensing method that has been widely used for vegetated areas is adapted to study dry regions. The method consists of a combination of the Change Vector Analysis and the Tasselled Cap (TC) transform. To adapt it to dryland conditions a new set of parameters for the TC transform is hereby calculated for the Landsat 8 OLI system. The new TC parameters are tested in the analysis of the surface change in Azraq Oasis, Jordan, over a time span of 30 years (1984–2013) for Landsat satellites images. Azraq is considered a good testing site since in the early 1990s it has been subject to a complete drying up of the superficial springs, mainly due to over-exploitation of the groundwater basin. Results show that the chosen technique is able to detect the expected change on the surface, consistent with photo-interpretation and historical information available.