Changes in NDVI and permafrost in Mongolia

This thesis is within the research project Permafrost4Life, funded until 2024, which investigates the interplay between vegetation, permafrost, and the water cycle in Mongolia. In particular forests and grasslands are associated with permafrost, and overgrazing and logging in conjunction with climate change can lead to permafrost degradation. This in turn might affect water availability and thus further impact the ecosystems.

The goal of the thesis is to analyze trends in the “normalized difference vegetation index” (NDVI), which is a measure for the “green-ness” of the vegetation, over entire Mongolia using satellite-based NDVI products. At the same time, a permafrost/ground temperature product is available from the Permafrost_cci project by the European Space Agency.

The thesis can investigate if there is a correlation between spatial patterns of the vegetation and permafrost data sets.

Good skills in GIS and at least moderate skills in Matlab/Python are required.

Published Aug. 31, 2021 9:28 AM - Last modified Aug. 31, 2021 9:29 AM

Supervisor(s)

Scope (credits)

60