Satellite observations of forest resilience to hurricanes along the northern Gulf of Mexico

Chengcheng Gang; Shufen Pan; Hanqin Tian; Zhuonan Wang; Rongting Xu; Zihao Bian; Naiqing Pan; Yuanzhi Yao; Hao Shi

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118243

Satellite observations of forest resilience to hurricanes along the northern Gulf of Mexico

Chengcheng Gang
, Shufen Pan
, Hanqin Tian
, Zhuonan Wang
, Rongting Xu
, Zihao Bian
, Naiqing Pan
, Yuanzhi Yao
, Hao Shi

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

As one of the most destructive natural disasters, hurricanes pose a great threat to forest ecosystems, particularly in the coastal areas. A better understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances is essential for reducing hazard risks as well as sustaining forests in a time of increasing climate disasters. Although hurricane-induced forest damage has been extensively studied at both local and regional levels, the lack of large-scale assessment of post-hurricane recovery still limits our understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances. In this study, we utilized four remotely sensed vegetation indices (VIs), including the normalized difference infrared index (NDII), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), leaf area index (LAI), and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), to examine the forest resilience to hurricanes of different strengths by quantifying the resistance, net change, and recovery of the forest after hurricanes that made landfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2015. The results revealed that the NDII was superior in monitoring the large-scale forest resilience. SIF exhibited a performance similar to that of the EVI. Wind speed was found to be the leading factor affecting forest damage and post-hurricane recovery. The impacted forest canopy began to recover approximately one month after the landfall. Woody wetlands exhibited less VI reduction and shorter recovery time than evergreen forests for the same category of hurricanes. For regions dominated by evergreen forests, NDII values lower than the multi-year average were observed across all seasons during the year after being impacted by a major hurricane. The widespread drought of 2006/2007 has aggravated the VI decrease and substantially extended the recovery period after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. Overall, our findings derived from satellite observations provide essential information for understanding forest resilience to hurricanes as well as implementing efficient post-hurricane forest restoration.

Original language	English
Article number	118243
Journal	Forest Ecology and Management
Volume	472
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118243
State	Published - Sep 15 2020
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, China ( 31602004 ); the National Key Research and Development Program of China, China ( 2016YFC0501707 ); the CAS “Light of West China” program, China ( XAB2016B05 ); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China ( 2452017184 ); NSF- NSFC Joint INFEWS Project ( 1903722 ), China and United States; NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research ( NA16NOS4780204 ), United States, and OUC -AU Joint Center Research Program, China and United States. We also appreciate the China Scholarship Council for the financial support, and the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, the Land-Atmosphere Interaction Research Group at Sun Yat-sen University , the Global Ecology Group at University of New Hampshire , U.S. Drought Monitor, and Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium for sharing dataset. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, China (31602004); the National Key Research and Development Program of China, China (2016YFC0501707); the CAS ?Light of West China? program, China (XAB2016B05); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (2452017184); NSF-NSFC Joint INFEWS Project (1903722), China and United States; NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (NA16NOS4780204), United States, and OUC-AU Joint Center Research Program, China and United States. We also appreciate the China Scholarship Council for the financial support, and the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, the Land-Atmosphere Interaction Research Group at Sun Yat-sen University, the Global Ecology Group at University of New Hampshire, U.S. Drought Monitor, and Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium for sharing dataset.

Keywords

Forest resilience
Hurricane disturbance
NDII
Vegetation index
Vegetation recovery

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10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118243

Cite this

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title = "Satellite observations of forest resilience to hurricanes along the northern Gulf of Mexico",

abstract = "As one of the most destructive natural disasters, hurricanes pose a great threat to forest ecosystems, particularly in the coastal areas. A better understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances is essential for reducing hazard risks as well as sustaining forests in a time of increasing climate disasters. Although hurricane-induced forest damage has been extensively studied at both local and regional levels, the lack of large-scale assessment of post-hurricane recovery still limits our understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances. In this study, we utilized four remotely sensed vegetation indices (VIs), including the normalized difference infrared index (NDII), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), leaf area index (LAI), and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), to examine the forest resilience to hurricanes of different strengths by quantifying the resistance, net change, and recovery of the forest after hurricanes that made landfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2015. The results revealed that the NDII was superior in monitoring the large-scale forest resilience. SIF exhibited a performance similar to that of the EVI. Wind speed was found to be the leading factor affecting forest damage and post-hurricane recovery. The impacted forest canopy began to recover approximately one month after the landfall. Woody wetlands exhibited less VI reduction and shorter recovery time than evergreen forests for the same category of hurricanes. For regions dominated by evergreen forests, NDII values lower than the multi-year average were observed across all seasons during the year after being impacted by a major hurricane. The widespread drought of 2006/2007 has aggravated the VI decrease and substantially extended the recovery period after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. Overall, our findings derived from satellite observations provide essential information for understanding forest resilience to hurricanes as well as implementing efficient post-hurricane forest restoration.",

keywords = "Forest resilience, Hurricane disturbance, NDII, Vegetation index, Vegetation recovery",

author = "Chengcheng Gang and Shufen Pan and Hanqin Tian and Zhuonan Wang and Rongting Xu and Zihao Bian and Naiqing Pan and Yuanzhi Yao and Hao Shi",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 Elsevier B.V.",

year = "2020",

month = sep,

day = "15",

doi = "10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118243",

language = "English",

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T1 - Satellite observations of forest resilience to hurricanes along the northern Gulf of Mexico

AU - Gang, Chengcheng

AU - Pan, Shufen

AU - Tian, Hanqin

AU - Wang, Zhuonan

AU - Xu, Rongting

AU - Bian, Zihao

AU - Pan, Naiqing

AU - Yao, Yuanzhi

AU - Shi, Hao

PY - 2020/9/15

Y1 - 2020/9/15

N2 - As one of the most destructive natural disasters, hurricanes pose a great threat to forest ecosystems, particularly in the coastal areas. A better understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances is essential for reducing hazard risks as well as sustaining forests in a time of increasing climate disasters. Although hurricane-induced forest damage has been extensively studied at both local and regional levels, the lack of large-scale assessment of post-hurricane recovery still limits our understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances. In this study, we utilized four remotely sensed vegetation indices (VIs), including the normalized difference infrared index (NDII), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), leaf area index (LAI), and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), to examine the forest resilience to hurricanes of different strengths by quantifying the resistance, net change, and recovery of the forest after hurricanes that made landfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2015. The results revealed that the NDII was superior in monitoring the large-scale forest resilience. SIF exhibited a performance similar to that of the EVI. Wind speed was found to be the leading factor affecting forest damage and post-hurricane recovery. The impacted forest canopy began to recover approximately one month after the landfall. Woody wetlands exhibited less VI reduction and shorter recovery time than evergreen forests for the same category of hurricanes. For regions dominated by evergreen forests, NDII values lower than the multi-year average were observed across all seasons during the year after being impacted by a major hurricane. The widespread drought of 2006/2007 has aggravated the VI decrease and substantially extended the recovery period after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. Overall, our findings derived from satellite observations provide essential information for understanding forest resilience to hurricanes as well as implementing efficient post-hurricane forest restoration.

AB - As one of the most destructive natural disasters, hurricanes pose a great threat to forest ecosystems, particularly in the coastal areas. A better understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances is essential for reducing hazard risks as well as sustaining forests in a time of increasing climate disasters. Although hurricane-induced forest damage has been extensively studied at both local and regional levels, the lack of large-scale assessment of post-hurricane recovery still limits our understanding of forest resilience to hurricane disturbances. In this study, we utilized four remotely sensed vegetation indices (VIs), including the normalized difference infrared index (NDII), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), leaf area index (LAI), and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), to examine the forest resilience to hurricanes of different strengths by quantifying the resistance, net change, and recovery of the forest after hurricanes that made landfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2015. The results revealed that the NDII was superior in monitoring the large-scale forest resilience. SIF exhibited a performance similar to that of the EVI. Wind speed was found to be the leading factor affecting forest damage and post-hurricane recovery. The impacted forest canopy began to recover approximately one month after the landfall. Woody wetlands exhibited less VI reduction and shorter recovery time than evergreen forests for the same category of hurricanes. For regions dominated by evergreen forests, NDII values lower than the multi-year average were observed across all seasons during the year after being impacted by a major hurricane. The widespread drought of 2006/2007 has aggravated the VI decrease and substantially extended the recovery period after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. Overall, our findings derived from satellite observations provide essential information for understanding forest resilience to hurricanes as well as implementing efficient post-hurricane forest restoration.

KW - Forest resilience

KW - Hurricane disturbance

KW - NDII

KW - Vegetation index

KW - Vegetation recovery

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85085187730

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DO - 10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118243

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85085187730

SN - 0378-1127

VL - 472

JO - Forest Ecology and Management

JF - Forest Ecology and Management

M1 - 118243

ER -

Satellite observations of forest resilience to hurricanes along the northern Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

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Keywords

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