Remote Sensing Assessment of Water Resources, Vegetation, and Land Surface Temperature in Eastern Saudi Arabia: Identification, Variability, and Trends

作者：Mazen E. Assiri, Md. Arfan Ali, Muhammad Haroon Siddiqui, Albandari AlZahrani, Lama Alamri, A. Alqahtani, Ayman S. Ghulam · 发表于：Remote Sensing Applications Society and Environment · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1016/j.rsase.2024.101296 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Urban Heat Island Mitigation、Land Use and Ecosystem Services、Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Saudi Arabia has one of the biggest water shortages and the least vegetation in the world, which is presumed to provoke this problem further due to climate change. Therefore, the present study investigates the water, vegetation, and temperature over Al-Asfar Lake region, Al Ahsa, Eastern province of Saudi Arabia using the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Land Surface Temperature (LST: °C) from Landsat-8 based operational land imager (OLI) measurements for the period 2013 to 2023. This study presented annual and seasonal (dry months: June–September and wet months: December–April) spatiotemporal distribution and variations, calculated their absolute change and trends, and examined their relationship. Results showed positive NDWI values over Al-Asfar Lake, indicating waterbodies; while positive NDVI values on the lake's bank, signifying vegetation. Notably, there were significant temporal variations in water and vegetation observed on annual, seasonal, and monthly scales. The study also found an overall decrease in vegetation areas of 5.36 km2 in 2023 compared to 2013, while waterbodies increased by 8.83 km2. The trend analysis using area-averaged data demonstrated that NDWI increased on annual (0.0075/year) and seasonal (dry: 0.0083/year and wet: 0.0049/year) scales, while NDVI decreased (annual: 0.0066/year, dry: 0.0083/year, and wet: 0.0009/year). Moreover, LST was recorded least amount over waterbodies (28.23 °C) an...