Multi temporal assessment of ground cover restoration and soil erosion risks along petroleum and gas pipelines in Azerbaijan using GIS and remote sensing
The main goal of this research was to perform vegetation cover restoration and soil erosion risk assessment based on multi temporal NDVI monitoring and deterministic USLE erosion prediction model along Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan Oil and South Caucasus Gas pipelines. The categorization of NDVI derived from IKONOS 2007 and PLEIADES 2012 high resolution multispectral satellite images into the bare lands, sparse and dense vegetation revealed the positive vegetation cover restoration along oil and gas pipelines. The change detection analysis of NDVIs showed that the class of 'Significant Increase in Vegetation' was 5.40 km2 within the croplands. However, the classes of 'Significant Decrease in Vegetation' and 'No Significant Change in Vegetation' were observed to be 2.56 and 5.10 km2 within croplands, correspondingly. This decrease can be explained by the encumbrances applied for the partial restrictions of land use activities along oil and gas pipelines to mitigate potential risks to pipelines and by the slow natural vegetation restoration. NDVI analysis for 50 m section polygons of pipeline corridor and contiguous areas showed that 7072 polygons had no significant NDVI difference in 2012, whereas in 2007 it was 4383. USLE model run with cover management factor derived from PLEIADES NDVI 2012 showed higher number of polygons with predicted erosion class of '0 10 ton/ha' which is acceptable and not critical to pipelines. For higher erosion classes more than '0 10 ton/ha' USLE model run with IKONOS NDVI 2007 revealed higher number of polygons. USLE model run predicted 37 of total number of erosion occurrences identified during 2005 2014.
Environmental Earth Sciences