Monitoring Changes in the Enhanced Vegetation Index to Inform the Management of Forests
<p>The study area is the Algonquin Provincial Park and the surrounding area, which we refer to as the Algonquin Greater Park Ecosystem (AGPE). Elevation (in meters above sea level, masl) is shown in (<b>a</b>). The forest’s mean age in 2019 is shown in (<b>b</b>). Protected areas within the AGPE are shown in (<b>c</b>). About 16% of forest pixels belong to protected areas. The geographic distribution of three disturbance agents in the period 2002–2020 is shown in (<b>d</b>). The gray color represents forested pixels and white non-forest pixels. The dashed black line shows the study area footprint (≈15,000 km<sup>2</sup> or 1.5 M ha). The solid black line shows Algonquin Provincial Park’s footprint. The two perpendicular dashed lines in (<b>a</b>) divide the study area into quadrants (northwest, NW; northeast, NE; southwest, SW; and southeast, SE) to ease the description of the results. Map projection is NAD83 Statistics Canada Lambert, EPSG: 3347.</p> "> Figure 2
<p>Main methodological steps used in this study. After downloading MODIS EVI data, pixels were filtered to only keep pixels with good quality data, within forested areas. EVI time series were then created and processed with three BFAST algorithms: bfast, bfast01, and bfastclassify. The bfast algorithm decomposes a time series into a seasonal component, trend, and noise. Using piece-wise linear regression on the trend component, it detects one or more breaks (if any). Here, we use three main outputs provided by bfast: type of break, magnitude of break, and time of break with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) The bfast01 algorithm runs a seasonally adjusted regression model on the ts and only detects the major break (if any). The bfastclassify algorithm then uses bfast01’s output to classify trends into one of eight possible trend types (<a href="#remotesensing-16-02919-f0A1" class="html-fig">Figure A1</a>). Only the magnitude of break values estimated by bfast was used in boosted regression trees (XGBoost models) to explore their relationship with predictor variables (dashed box at bottom, Equation (<a href="#FD1-remotesensing-16-02919" class="html-disp-formula">1</a>) in main text). Satellite icon from <a href="http://flaticon.com" target="_blank">flaticon.com</a> (accessed on 29 April 2022).</p> "> Figure 3
<p>Spatial distribution of EVI negative and positive breaks in the AGPE from 2003 to 2022. Most of the breaks were found in the eastern half of the AGPE and more particularly in the northeast quadrant. There were 11,871 pixels with negative breaks (red pixels) and 3893 pixels with positive breaks (cyan pixels). These breaks were estimated with the bfast algorithm. The dashed black line shows the study area footprint. The solid black line shows Algonquin Provincial Park’s footprint. The two perpendicular dashed lines divide the study area into four quadrants (northwest, NW; northeast, NE; southwest, SW; and southeast, SE) to ease the interpretation of results. Map projection is NAD83 Statistics Canada Lambert, EPSG: 3347.</p> "> Figure 4
<p>Spatial distribution of EVI trend types in the AGPE from 2003 to 2022. These trends were produced with the bfastclassify algorithm. The trend types are those proposed by de Jong et al. [<a href="#B57-remotesensing-16-02919" class="html-bibr">57</a>]. Abbreviations—MIG: monotonic increasing, greening trend (<span class="html-italic">n</span> = 33,683); MDB: monotonic decreasing, browning trend (<span class="html-italic">n</span> = 4981); IInb: interruption, increasing trend with a negative break (<span class="html-italic">n</span> = 11,637); RBG: reversal, browning to greening trend (<span class="html-italic">n</span> = 11,654). (Trends MIGpb, MDBnb, IDpb, and RGB are not shown given their low percentages). The dashed black line shows the study area footprint. The solid black line shows Algonquin Provincial Park’s footprint. The two perpendicular dashed lines divide the study area into four quadrants (northwest, NW; northeast, NE; southwest, SW; and southeast, SE) to ease the interpretation of results. Map projection across all figures is NAD83 Statistics Canada Lambert, EPSG: 3347.</p> "> Figure 5
<p>Predictors of the magnitude of EVI breaks (negative breaks in red and positive breaks in cyan tone boxes) from 2003 to 2022. The ranking reflects feature importance using the gain metric as estimated by XGBoost models. The same five predictors are in the top five but with slightly different rankings (connecting lines with slopes) except for the summer climate moisture index with a 3-year lag, which ranks fourth in both (connecting line with no slope). Forest protection status is low-ranking for both types of breaks. The XGBoost models were run with subsets of the detected breaks (negative breaks, <span class="html-italic">n</span> = 116 records; positive breaks, <span class="html-italic">n</span> = 3263 records).</p> "> Figure A1
<p>Schematic of break and trend types employed in this study. A time series (ts) can be characterized by the presence or absence of breaks and trends. Breaks represent abrupt changes in a ts whereas trends represent gradual changes. Here, we refer to three major groups of trends: monotonic (<b>a</b>,<b>b</b>), interruption (<b>c</b>), and reversal trends (<b>d</b>). Similarly, we refer to two break types: negative (red downward arrow) and positive (green upward arrow) breaks. Trends can be monotonic, either increasing (green slopes) or decreasing (orange slopes). The former are referred to as greening trends and the latter as browning trends. Monotonic trends can show no breaks (<b>a</b>) or show one or more breaks (negative or positive) but in concordance with the slope of the trend segments (<b>b</b>). Conversely, interruption (<b>c</b>) and reversal (<b>d</b>) trends are characterized by having a break type in discordance with the slope of the trend segments. Interruption trends can have two positive trend segments divided by a negative break and vice versa (two negative trend segments divided by a positive break). Reversal trends have opposite trend segments divided by a negative or positive break. Lastly, some ts may not change or show changes that are too small to be detected with the methods employed (horizontal gray dashed line in (<b>a</b>)). Here, we use the trend classification proposed by de Jong et al. [<a href="#B57-remotesensing-16-02919" class="html-bibr">57</a>]—MIG: monotonic increasing, greening trend (without breaks) (bottom line in (<b>a</b>)); MDB: monotonic decreasing, browning trend (without breaks) (top line in (<b>a</b>)); MIGpb: monotonic increasing, greening trend with a positive break (top set of lines in (<b>b</b>)); MDBnb: monotonic decreasing, browning trend with a negative break (bottom set of lines in (<b>b</b>)); IInb: interruption, the increasing trend with a negative break (top set of lines in (<b>c</b>)); IDpb: interruption, decreasing trend with a positive break (bottom set of lines in (<b>c</b>)); RGB: reversal, greening to browning trend (top two sets of lines in (<b>d</b>)); RBG: reversal, browning to greening trend (bottom two sets of lines in (<b>d</b>)).</p> "> Figure A2
<p>Density plots of forest EVI magnitude of breaks in the AGPE from 2003 to 2022. The number of breaks and their magnitudes broken down by year are shown. Extreme magnitude values have been omitted to aid visualization. Vertical lines show medians—solid: yearly; dashed: entire time series. The total number of breaks was 15,904 (11,969 negative and 3935 positive). The time of break was rounded up prior to plotting which caused 2003 breaks (8 negative and 18 positive) to be part of 2004. No breaks were detected in 2022.</p> "> Figure A3
<p>Ranking of all predictors (features) used in the XGBoost models. Panel (<b>a</b>) shows predictors of negative break magnitudes and panel (<b>b</b>) shows those of positive break magnitudes. These models were run with subsets of the detected breaks (negative breaks, <span class="html-italic">n</span> = 116 records; positive, <span class="html-italic">n</span> = 3263 records). Variable abbreviations—for_age: forest age; dd5_wt: winter degree days above 5 °C; cmi_sm: summer climate moisture index; for_con: percentage of conifers; for_pro_0: non-protected forest; lag#: 1-, 2- or 3-year lags. The protected forest variable is not present in (<b>a</b>) given its lack of importance in explaining negative breaks.</p> "> Figure A4
<p>Partial dependence plots of magnitude of negative break predictors (features). The relationships between predictors and response (magnitude of EVI breaks) variables were mostly non-linear. Plots were created from the output of XGBoost. The model was run with a subset of all detected negative breaks (<span class="html-italic">n</span> = 116). The values on the y-axes are absolute values of negative magnitudes. Variable abbreviations—for_age: forest age; dd5_wt: winter degree days above 5 °C; cmi_sm: summer climate moisture index; for_con: percentage of conifers; for_pro_0: non-protected forest equals 1, protected equals 0; lag#: 1-, 2- or 3-year lags.</p> "> Figure A5
<p>Partial dependence plots of magnitude of positive break predictors (features). The relationships between predictors and response (magnitude of EVI breaks) variables were mostly non-linear. Plots were created from the output of XGBoost. The model was run with a subset of all the detected positive breaks (<span class="html-italic">n</span> = 3263). Variable abbreviations—for_age: forest age; dd5_wt: winter degree days above 5 °C; cmi_sm: summer climate moisture index; for_con: percentage of conifers; for_pro_0: non-protected forest equals 1, protected equals 0; lag#: 1-, 2- or 3-year lags.</p> "> Figure A6
<p>Geographic distribution of trends in Algonquin Park and the surrounding area, which we refer to as the Algonquin Greater Park Ecosystem (AGPE). All maps show trends that were derived from the output of bfastclassify. Compared to greening trends (MIG) which occurred throughout the AGPE (<b>a</b>), browning trends (MDB) mostly occurred in the NE quadrant (<b>b</b>). Most increasing trends with negative breaks (interruptions, IInb) occurred in the NW quadrant (<b>c</b>) while most of the relatively few decreasing trends with positive breaks (interruptions, IDpb) occurred in the NE quadrant (<b>c</b>). Notably, browning to greening reverse trends (RBG) co-occurred with browning trends in the NE quadrant (<b>d</b>). The dashed black line shows the study area footprint (1.5 M ha). The solid black line shows Algonquin Provincial Park’s footprint. The perpendicular dashed lines divide the study area into four quadrants (northwest, NW; northeast, NE; southwest, SW; and southeast, SE) to ease the description of the results. Map projection across all figures is NAD83 Statistics Canada Lambert, EPSG: 3347.</p> ">
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Area
2.2. Data
2.2.1. Vegetation Index
2.2.2. Forest Attributes and Disturbance
2.2.3. Climate and Other Data Sources
2.3. Statistical Methods
2.3.1. EVI Change Detection
2.3.2. Modeling EVI Magnitude of Change
3. Results
3.1. EVI Changes in Time
3.2. EVI Changes Throughout the Study Area
3.3. Drivers of Change
4. Discussion
4.1. Changes in EVI
4.2. Attribution of Change
4.3. Limitations
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
AGPE | Algonquin Park and Greater Park Ecosystem (Algonquin Provincial Park and |
surrounding area) | |
BFAST | Breaks For Additive Seasonal and Trend |
BRT | boosted regression tree |
CanLaD | Canada Landsat Disturbance data source |
EVI | enhanced vegetation index |
GFC | Global Forest Change |
MODIS | Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer |
VI | vegetation index |
XGBoost | extreme gradient boosting |
Appendix A
Appendix A.1. Data Sources
Data | Time Period | Spatial Resolution | Temporal Resolution | Source, Author |
---|---|---|---|---|
MODIS EVI | 2003–2022 | 250 m | 16-days | NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) |
Forest fire | 2003–2020 | 30 m | Yearly | Hermosilla et al. [46] |
Forest harvest | 2003–2020 | 30 m | Yearly | Hermosilla et al. [46] |
Insect damage polygons | 2003–2020 | polygons | Yearly | Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources |
CanLaD (fire + harvest) | 2003–2015 | 30 m | Yearly | Guindon et al. [47] |
Global Forest Change (GFC) | 2003–2021 | 30 m | Yearly | Hansen et al. [48] |
Climate variables from ClimateNA | 2000–2020 | 10 km (downscaled to 250 m) | Yearly | Wang et al. [50] |
Forest composition (percentage of conifers derived from these sources) | 2001, 2011, 2019 | 250 m, 30 m | Year | Beaudoin et al. [43], Hermosilla et al. [42] |
Forest age | 2001, 2011, 2019 | 250 m, 30 m | Year | Beaudoin et al. [43], Maltman et al. [44] |
Forest land cover | 2003 | 30 m | Year | Hermosilla et al. [45] |
Canada’s protected areas (polygons) | 2020 | polygons | - | Environment and Climate Change Canada |
Elevation | - | 30 m | - | NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Global |
Appendix A.2. Break and Trend Detection with BFAST Algorithms
h = 0.025 | h = 0.05 | h = 0.1 | h = 0.15 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
(6 Months) | (1 Year) | (2 Years) | (3 Years) | |
Total breaks | 1477 | 15,904 | 11,799 | 10,701 |
Unique pixels | 590 | 12,348 | 10,146 | 9662 |
Breaks per pixel | 2.50 | 1.29 | 1.16 | 1.11 |
Negative breaks (%) | 822 (56) | 11,969 (75) | 9372 (79) | 8466 (79) |
Unique pixels | 440 | 9720 | 8276 | 7792 |
Breaks per pixel | 1.87 | 1.23 | 1.13 | 1.09 |
Positive breaks (%) | 655 (44) | 3935 (25) | 2427 (21) | 2235 (21) |
Unique pixels | 308 | 3033 | 2115 | 2057 |
Breaks per pixel | 2.13 | 1.30 | 1.15 | 1.09 |
Break Type | Data Source | h = 0.05 | h = 0.025 | h = 0.1 | h = 0.15 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(1 Year) | (6 Months) | (2 Years) | (3 Years) | ||||||
Breaks Matched | Percent Matched | Breaks Matched | Percent Matched | Breaks Matched | Percent Matched | Breaks Matched | Percent Matched | ||
Negative | |||||||||
Fire | 148 | 1.2 | 44 | 5.4 | 145 | 1.5 | 143 | 1.7 | |
Harvest | 1864 | 15.6 | 246 | 29.9 | 1773 | 18.9 | 1655 | 19.5 | |
Insects | 54 | 0.5 | 1 | 0.1 | 55 | 0.6 | 52 | 0.6 | |
CanLaD | 3358 | 28.1 | 336 | 40.9 | 3100 | 33.1 | 2909 | 34.4 | |
GFC | 7228 | 60.4 | 541 | 65.8 | 6419 | 68.5 | 5981 | 70.6 | |
Positive | |||||||||
Fire | 0 | 0.0 | 2 | 0.3 | 0 | 0.0 | 1 | 0.0 | |
Harvest | 189 | 4.8 | 122 | 18.6 | 91 | 3.7 | 82 | 3.7 | |
Insects | 49 | 1.2 | 0 | 0.0 | 31 | 1.3 | 32 | 1.4 | |
CanLaD | 694 | 17.6 | 256 | 39.1 | 449 | 18.5 | 406 | 18.2 | |
GFC | 1272 | 32.3 | 324 | 49.5 | 768 | 31.6 | 693 | 31.0 |
Appendix A.3. Boosted Regression Trees (XGBoost Models)
Model | MSE | RMSE | R2 | R2-adj | n Records | n Variables |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Negative break magnitudes | ||||||
All records | 81,922.19 | 286.22 | 0.334 | 0.332 | 11,969 | 9 |
Subset of records | 85,546.93 | 292.48 | 0.724 | 0.639 | 116 | 9 |
Positive break magnitudes | ||||||
All records | 100,565.73 | 317.12 | 0.337 | 0.333 | 3935 | 9 |
Subset of records | 96,362.44 | 310.42 | 0.358 | 0.352 | 3263 | 9 |
XGBoost Parameter | XGBoost Parameter Value |
---|---|
booster | gbtree |
early_stopping_rounds | 50 |
gamma | 0.2 |
learning_rate | 0.01 |
max_depth | 8 |
n_estimators | 1000 |
random_state | 42 |
reg_lambda | 10 |
reg_alpha | 1 |
Appendix A.4. Geographic Distribution of Breaks and Trends
Appendix A.5. Comparison of Disturbance Data
Fire | Harvest | Insects | CanLaD | GFC | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fire | 100.0% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
Harvest | 4.5% | 100% | 0.3% | 14.8% | 6.0% |
Insects | 0.0% | 0.2% | 100% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
CanLaD | 17.2% | 48.2% | 1.1% | 100.0% | 17.6% |
GFC | 40.5% | 63.4% | 7.3% | 56.9% | 100.0% |
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Description | Short Form | Usage |
---|---|---|
Enhanced vegetation index | EVI | Input to BFAST functions (bfast & bfast01). |
EVI abrupt change or break | break | Output of bfast function. Used in descriptive statistics. |
EVI magnitude of break | magnitude | Output of bfast function. Figure A2. Response variable in BRT models. BRT variable name: magnitude. |
EVI type of break | break type | Output of bfast function. Negative and positive breaks are produced. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 2, Figure 3 and Figure A2. |
EVI time of break | time of break | Output of bfast function. This variable is associated with 95% CIs. Used in descriptive statistics and for joining breaks with other data sources |
EVI gradual change or trend | trend | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Trend classification proposed by de Jong et al. [57]. |
EVI monotonic increasing, greening trend (without breaks) | MIG | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3, Figure 4 and Figure A4. |
EVI monotonic decreasing, browning trend (without breaks) | MDB | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3, Figure 4 and Figure A4. |
EVI monotonic increasing, greening trend with a positive break | MIGpb | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3. |
EVI monotonic increasing, browning trend with a negative break | MDBnb | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3. |
EVI interruption, increasing trend with a negative break | IInb | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3, Figure 4 and Figure A4. |
EVI interruption, decreasing trend with a positive break | IDpb | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3, Figure A4. |
EVI reversal, greening to browning trend | RGB | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3. |
EVI reversal, browning to greening trend. | RBG | Output of bfastclassify function. Used in descriptive statistics. Table 3, Figure 4 and Figure A4. |
Forest age | age | Forest-related predictor used in BRT models. BRT variable name: for_age |
Percent coniferous composition | percentage of conifers | Forest-related predictor used in BRT models. BRT variable name: for_con. |
Forest protection status | protection status | Forest-related predictor used in BRT models. BRT variable name: for_pro_0. |
Winter degree days above 5 °C | winter DD5 | Climate-related predictor used in BRT models. Temporal lagged versions were used. BRT variable names: dd5_wt_lag1, dd5_wt_lag3. |
Summer climate moisture index | summer CMI | Climate-related predictor used in BRT models. Temporal lagged versions were used. BRT variable names: cmi_sm, cmi_sm_lag1, cmi_sm_lag2, cmi_sm_lag3. |
Group | # of Forest Pixels | # of Breaks in 2003–2022 | # of Pixels with Breaks in 2003–2022 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(% of Breaks) | [% of Forest Pixels] | ||||||
All | Negative | Positive | All | Negative | Positive | ||
AGPE | 230,806 | 15,904 | 11,969 | 3935 | 12,348 | 9720 | 3033 |
(75.3%) | (24.7%) | [5.3%] | [4.2%] | [1.3%] | |||
Non-protected forests | 194,046 | 15,178 | 11,499 | 3679 | 11,805 | 9366 | 2840 |
(75.8%) | (24.2%) | [6.1%] | [4.8%] | [1.5%] | |||
Protected forests | 36,760 | 726 | 470 | 256 | 543 | 354 | 193 |
(64.7%) | (35.3%) | [1.5%] | [1.0%] | [0.5%] |
Group | # of Forest Pixels | # of Trend Pixels | Trend Types | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
MIG | MDB | MIGpb | MDBnb | IInb | IDpb | RGB | RBG | ||||
AGPE | 230,806 | 64,188 | 33,683 | 4981 | 73 | 17 | 11,637 | 1674 | 469 | 11,654 | |
% of forest pixels | 27.8 | 14.6 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 5.0 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 5.0 | ||
% of all trends | 52.5 | 7.8 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 18.1 | 2.6 | 0.7 | 18.2 | |||
Non-protected forests | 194,046 | 58,457 | 30,370 | 4366 | 69 | 15 | 10,691 | 1445 | 404 | 11,097 | |
% of forest pixels | 28.9 | 15.0 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 5.3 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 5.5 | ||
% of all trends | 52.0 | 7.5 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 18.3 | 2.5 | 0.7 | 19.0 | |||
Protected forests | 36,760 | 5731 | 3313 | 615 | 4 | 2 | 946 | 229 | 65 | 557 | |
% of forest pixels | 14.6 | 8.4 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.4 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 1.4 | ||
% of all trends | 57.8 | 10.7 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 16.5 | 4.0 | 1.1 | 9.7 |
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Rodriguez, P.S.; Schwantes, A.M.; Gonzalez, A.; Fortin, M.-J. Monitoring Changes in the Enhanced Vegetation Index to Inform the Management of Forests. Remote Sens. 2024, 16, 2919. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16162919
Rodriguez PS, Schwantes AM, Gonzalez A, Fortin M-J. Monitoring Changes in the Enhanced Vegetation Index to Inform the Management of Forests. Remote Sensing. 2024; 16(16):2919. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16162919
Chicago/Turabian StyleRodriguez, Peter S., Amanda M. Schwantes, Andrew Gonzalez, and Marie-Josée Fortin. 2024. "Monitoring Changes in the Enhanced Vegetation Index to Inform the Management of Forests" Remote Sensing 16, no. 16: 2919. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16162919