Remote Sensing Based Study on Vegetation Dynamics in Dry Lands of Kazakhstan

Martin Kappas ist Professor für Kartographie, GIS & Fernerkundung am Geographischen Institut der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Er hat Geophysik, Geologie und Geographie an den Universitäten Bonn und Köln studiert und an der Universität Mannheim promoviert und sich habilitiert. Nach einer Tätigkeit am Geologischen Landesamt Nordrhein-Westfalen war er zunächst wissenschaftlicher Assistent, dann Privatdozent am Lehrstuhl für Physikalische Geographie der Universität Mannheim, ehe er im Jahr 2000 nach Göttingen ging.

The natural environment of drylands is highly vulnerable and fragile, variations of climate conditions here are the highest among all terrestrial ecosystems and that is why they are expected to be strongly influenced by the current climate change. Remote sensing and GIS play an important role in a better understanding about the nature of climate impacts on the drylands as a whole system and on the vegetation cover as the most important component of this ecosystem at all scales from global to regional and local. This book is one of the first to examine the dynamics of drylands in Kazakhstan using time series of remote sensing derived data and climate records over the last 20 years. The author investigated the problem from different views and combined analyses at multiple time and spatial scales. The entire spectrum of the interrelationship between climate and vegetation cover - spatial and temporal, on the regional, subregional and local scale, interannual and within the growing season -, has been analysed, described and discussed. A new monitoring approach was presented which enables discrimination between climatic and anthropogenic forces in the complex of dryland dynamics. The text improves the understanding of the nature and mechanisms of the ecosystem dynamics in the internal Eurasia and provides the basis for predicting changes in vegetation productivity that accompany changes in climate and human activities. Taken as a whole, the results of this study present indispensable information for ecological and socio-economic research and may be used by scientists, landscape managers, and decision makers interested in this region.