Implications of increasing pollution levels on changing greenness over the Jim Corbett National Park

Student name: Ms Saambhavi Nautiyal
Guide: Dr Chander Kumar Singh
Year of completion: 2022
Host Organisation: Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr V Vinoj

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Abstract:

Rising pollution levels and their detrimental effect on human health is well known. However, consequences of the ever-mounting pollution on plant health are less explored. In this study, we have considered change in greenness of plants as a proxy to their wellbeing and have explored the relation between pollution and vegetation greenness over the Jim Corbett National Park (JCNP) region in Uttarakhand, India. We have used satellite retrieved vegetation indices (NDVI and EVI) and aerosol optical depth (AOD) for the last seventeen years i.e., 2001-2017. Our study reports a large Spatio-temporal variation in vegetation indices with varying seasonality. Comparison between MODIS and AVHRR retrieved NDVI shows disagreement in seasonality and trends. While MODIS shows a greening, AVHRR reports declining greenness. Improvement in NDVI values is seen with decline in pollution levels. Overall 30- 40 % higher NDVI values is seen for a case of 0 AOD level. The seasonality in the difference of NDVI and EVI also indicates a clear contribution of AOD in modulating vegetation indices. We will further discuss the spatial and temporal pattern of these indices and the effect of pollution at different temporal scales in detail.

Keywords: Pollution; NDVI; EVI; Jim Corbett National Park; AVHRR.