Abstract

To explore the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on vegetation cover changes in Northern, Middle, and Eastern Jordan Badia rangelands, Landsat-8 (Operational Land Imager [OLI]) images were downloaded and processed to attain surface reflectance data for March and July 2018–2020. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was then derived from OLI-images, where the total area covered with water, bare soil, scattered vegetation, dense grasses and shrubs, and dense forests were estimated. Across the study period, 2019 had the highest rainfall (195 mm) and temperature (21.7 °C), while the lowest rainfall was recorded in 2018 (154 mm). The Northern Badia showed a consistently larger area of dense vegetation on average (407.4 km²) compared to the Eastern (149.3km²), and Middle (55.2 km²) Badia. The total area covered with scattered vegetation in 2020 was higher than in 2019 and 2018 across the years and studied area, except in Middle Badia. Vegetation cover classes were inconsistent for Middle Badia in March, scattered vegetation was higher in 2019 compared to 2020. However, the total area covered with vegetation in July was lower than in March across the years and studied area. The curfew allowed the regeneration of shrubs and grasses in the study area, which helped in restoring the rangeland vegetation. COVID-19 lockdown served as a conservation grazing technique and provided a real case of restoring the degraded rangeland cover through managed grazing.

摘要

为了探索 COVID-19 大流行封锁对约旦巴迪亚牧场北部、中部和东部植被覆盖变化的影响，下载并处理了 Landsat-8（操作土地成像仪 [OLI]）图像以获得 3 月和 7 月的表面反射率数据2018-2020 年。然后从 OLI 图像中得出归一化差异植被指数 (NDVI)，其中估计了被水覆盖的总面积、裸土、零星植被、茂密的草和灌木以及茂密的森林。在整个研究期间，2019 年的降雨量（195 毫米）和温度（21.7°C）最高，而 2018 年的降雨量最低（154 毫米）。与东部 (149.3km ² ) 和中部 (55.2 km ² ) 相比，北部 Badia 的平均茂密植被面积 (407.4 km ² )²）巴迪亚。除中巴迪亚地区外，2020年全年和研究区的零星植被总面积均高于2019年和2018年。中巴迪亚3月植被覆盖等级不一致，2019年零星植被较2020年偏高。但7月植被总覆盖面积低于3月各年份和研究区。宵禁使研究区的灌木和草得以再生，这有助于恢复牧场植被。COVID-19 封锁是一种保护性放牧技术，并提供了通过管理放牧恢复退化牧场的真实案例。