Monitoring changes in vegetation health of agricultural lands using remote sensing data in Alborz province

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Soil and Water Research Institute, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization, Karaj, Alborz, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Soil and Water Research Institute, Agricultural Research Education and Extension Organization, Karaj, Alborz, Iran.

Abstract

Monitoring vegetation health, particularly within agricultural lands, is crucial for assessing ecological sustainability, crop productivity, and climate change resilience. This study investigates the temporal trends of vegetation health in Alborz Province, Iran, from 2017 to 2025 using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Data were processed and analyzed on the Google Earth Engine platform. April and May were selected as the peak growing season, and cloud and shadow masking was applied using the Scene Classification Layer (SCL) band. Annual median composites were generated to reduce noise and eliminate the influence of atmospheric disturbances. A per-pixel linear regression was then conducted on the NDVI time series to quantify trends, which were categorized into five classes: strong decrease, slight decrease, stable, slight increase, and strong increase. The results revealed that over 80% of agricultural lands in Alborz Province exhibited a negative trend in NDVI, with 66.5% classified as strong decrease and 16% as slight decrease. Only 14% of the cropland showed positive trends, while 6% remained stable. These patterns reflect a significant degradation in vegetation health across the region. When compared with similar studies conducted in arid and semi-arid regions worldwide, these findings demonstrate consistent vulnerabilities of agricultural systems to climatic stress, water scarcity, and land-use pressures. The limited areas of NDVI improvement suggest potential best practices that could be scaled to reverse degradation trends. This research provides a valuable framework for decision-making in land use planning, water resource management, and sustainable agriculture development. The integration of satellite-based monitoring with cloud-computing platforms offers a scalable approach to track vegetation dynamics in data-scarce regions.

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Main Subjects

References

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Iranian Journal of Soil Research
Volume 39, Issue 2
September 2025
Pages 171-188

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