Resilience of ecosystems can be measured from space - University of Exeter
A natural habitat's ability to withstand and recover from damage can be empirically monitored from space – and the method may prove important during upcoming decades of climate and land-use change.
The first study to empirically document that vegetation resilience can be measured from space is published today in Nature Climate Change by a research team from the University of Potsdam, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Exeter.
The method will likely be important for future assessments of declines in vegetation resilience due to anthropogenic climate change and unsustainable resource management.
"New ways of handling large data sets make it possible to check on widely held theories and assumptions about how ecosystems function," said lead author Taylor Smith, from the University of Potsdam. "Our work empirically confirms of one of those theories – that it is possible to measure how resilient vegetation is to outside pressure with a straightforward mathematical model."
The study used observational data to estimate the variability of global vegetation as well as the speed of recovery after large losses in vegetation.
By analysing different satellite products since 1992, the group shows that simple metrics can be used to estimate the resilience of ecosystems to large shocks – even where large losses of vegetation haven’t happened yet.
The analysis shows that, on average, vegetation initially gained resilience globally during the ’90s. Then a shift took place with a more pronounced resilience loss since the early 2000s. The finding indicates that especially tropical rainforests and Siberian Boreal forests have grown more vulnerable to events like wildfires, pests, human disturbances, and natural catastrophes.
Numerous factors might contribute to this shift, such as natural variability, anthropogenic climate change, increasing human land use and deforestation, and a higher frequency of droughts and wildfires.
Read the paper: Smith, T., Traxl, D. & Boers, N. Empirical evidence for recent global shifts in vegetation resilience. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2022). doi: 10.1038/s41558-022-01352-2
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Posted On: 29/04/2022