Assessment of land degradation using time series trend analysis of vegetation indictors in Otindag Sandy land

Land condition assessment is a basic prerequisite for finding the degradation of a territory, which might lead to desertification under climatic and human pressures. The temporal change in vegetation productivity is a key indicator of land degradation. In this paper, taking the Otindag Sandy Land as a case, the mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI_a), net primary production (NPP) and vegetation rain use efficiency (RUE) dynamic trends during 2001–2010 were analysed. The Mann-Kendall test and the Correlation Analysis method were used and their sensitivities to land degradation were evaluated. The results showed that the three vegetation indicators (NDVI_a, NPP and RUE) showed a downward trend with the two methods in the past 10 years and the land was degraded. For the analysis of the three vegetation indicators (NDVI_a, NPP and RUE), it indicated a decreasing trend in 62.57%, 74.16% and 88.56% of the study area according to the Mann-Kendall test and in 57.85%, 68.38% and 85.29% according to the correlation analysis method. However, the change trends were not significant, the significant trends at the 95% confidence level only accounted for a small proportion. Analysis of NDVI_a, NPP and RUE series showed a significant decreasing trend in 9.21%, 4.81% and 6.51% with the Mann-Kendall test. The NPP change trends showed obvious positive link with the precipitation in the study area. While the effect of the inter-annual variation of the precipitation for RUE was small, the vegetation RUE can provide valuable insights into the status of land condition and had best sensitivity to land degradation