Evolution of the landscape's vegetation health condition in a tropical coastal lagoon: a remote sensing study in the case of northern Colombia

Tropical coastal lagoons are valuable ecosystems that provide vital ecological services. Understanding vegetation health dynamics is essential to conserve and manage these environments effectively. Also, some landscape-related aspects suffer changes through time due to natural and human-driven factors. Analyzing a landscape's evolution allows getting to know the place's identity and underlying interactions with its population. This study employed satellite imagery from the Landsat 8 mission and advanced data analysis techniques to investigate vegetation health's temporal and spatial patterns in Ciénaga de Mallorquín, a coastal lagoon in Northern Colombia. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was calculated from the satellite data to quantify vegetation biomass and its health. The results show a significant decline in NDVI values between 2013 and 2018, followed by a recovery phase between 2018 and 2022. However, the NDVI levels in 2022 remain significantly lower than those in 2013, indicating the need for continued conservation efforts. This study demonstrates the power of remote sensing as a tool for monitoring vegetation dynamics and informing sustainable management practices in tropical coastal ecosystems.

• Autores: Jaramillo, Eva; Portnoy, Ivan; Torregroza-Espinosa, Ana C.; Larios-Giraldo, Paola
• Tipo de recurso: Article of investigation
• Fecha de publicación: 2024
• Institución: Corporación Universidad de la Costa
• Repositorio: REDICUC - Repositorio CUC
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.cuc.edu.co:11323/13504
• Acceso en línea: https://hdl.handle.net/11323/13504; https://repositorio.cuc.edu.co/
• Palabra clave: Ciénaga de Mallorquín; NDVI; Remote sensing; Vegetation biomass
• Rights: openAccess
• License: Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)