Apple orchard phenology response to desiccation and temperature changes in Urmia Lake region

作者：Eisavi V^*; Homayouni S; Rezaei Chiyaneh E

来源：International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 2017, 14(9): 1865-1878.

DOI：10.1007/s13762-017-1283-5

• Phenology
• Temperature change
• Land cover change

Agricultural production activities, such as those for various fruits and cereals, play a significant role in the local economy and food security of the Urmia Lake region. In particular, this region has thousands of hectares of apple orchards, which have an important socioeconomic impact on the life of people. Climate and land cover changes over the past several decades threaten the apple orchards phenology (AOP). Recent studies have emphasized the effect of temperature on plant phenology; however, they have overlooked the influence of land cover changes, such as Lake Desiccation, on plant phenology. Meanwhile, how climate change and Lake Desiccation will affect the AOP is still not very well understood. Therefore, in this study, we used the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) extracted from remote sensing images acquired by the MODIS sensor spanning from 2003 to 2014, in order to extract the AOP events. Furthermore, we used a random forest regression (RFR) for analyzing the relationship between temperature changes/Lake Desiccation and AOP. The results revealed that EVI is a very useful tool for estimating the AOP with a mean root-mean-square error of 6.25 days. Moreover, there is a linear trend toward the early start of season in this region. The end of season (EOS) and the growing season length have also increased in the areas closer to the lake until 2008. This seems that the delayed EOS in the area closest to Urmia Lake has been associated with the lake microclimate since 2008.

• 出版日期2017-9