Assessment and mapping of the current state of the landscapes/ecosystems in Haskovo region (southeastern Bulgaria) in relation to ecosystem services using remote sensing and GIS

摘要

Assessment and mapping of the ecosystems state in the context of ecosystem services that they supply are important tasks to improve human well-being, especially in regions with considerable land degradation. Haskovo region is situated in the Southeastern part of Bulgaria and is considered as an extremely sensitive to land degradation in terms of climate change and human activities in result of unappropriated land management practices. In order to improve the conservation activities and ecosystem services of the region, rapid and available technics are needed in addition to the used analytical methods. The study presents the potential of remote sensing methods (satellite data from different sensors Sentinel and Landsat) and GIS for assessment of the current state of the landscapes to supply ecosystem services and allows a comprehensive evaluation of the main indicators for assessment of ecosystem services to be performed. The proposed methodology includes application of vegetation indices (NDVI, NDWI and MSAVI2) and SAR data. The results show that the referred technics can be used for a rapid and accurate assessment of the main indicators showing the state of the terrestrial ecosystems such as: soil degradation, land use and impact of human activities, responsible for the ecosystem services supply.