More than 20 techniques have been developed to de-noise time-series vegetation index data from different satellite sensors to reconstruct long time-series data sets. Although many studies have compared Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) noise-reduction techniques, few studies have compared these techniques systematically and comprehensively. This study tested eight techniques for smoothing different vegetation types using different types of multi-temporal NDVI data (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) (Global Inventory Modeling and Map Studies (GIMMS) and Pathfinder AVHRR Land (PAL), Satellite Pour l’ Observation de la Terre (SPOT) VEGETATION (VGT), and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (Terra)) with the ultimate purpose of determining the best reconstruction technique for each type of vegetation captured with four satellite sensors. These techniques include the modified best index slope extraction (M-BISE) technique, the Savitzky-Golay (S-G) technique, the mean value iteration filter (MVI) technique, the asymmetric Gaussian (A-G) technique, the double logistic (D-L) technique, the changing-weight filter (CW) technique, the interpolation for data reconstruction (IDR) technique, and the Whittaker smoother (WS) technique. These techniques were evaluated by calculating the root mean square error (RMSE), the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), and the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). The results indicate that the S-G, CW, and WS techniques perform better than the other tested techniques, while the IDR, M-BISE, and MVI techniques performed worse than the other techniques. The best de-noise technique varies with different vegetation types and NDVI data sources. The S-G performs best in most situations. In addition, the CW and WS are effective techniques that were exceeded only by the S-G technique. The assessment results are consistent in terms of the three evaluation indexes for GIMMS, PAL, and SPOT data in the study area, but not for the MODIS data. The study will be very helpful for choosing reconstruction techniques for long time-series data sets.

The Qinghai-Tibet (QT) Plateau Engineering Corridor is located in the hinterland of the QT Plateau, which is highly sensitive to global climate change. Climate change causes permafrost degradation, which subsequently affects vegetation growth. This study focused on the vegetation dynamics and their relationships with climate change and human activities in the region surrounding the QT Plateau Engineering Corridor. The vegetation changes were inferred by applying trend analysis, the Mann-Kendall trend test and abrupt change analysis. Six key regions, each containing 40 nested quadrats that ranged in size from 500 × 500 m to 20 × 20 km, were selected to determine the spatial scales of the impacts from different factors. Cumulative growing season integrated enhanced vegetation index (CGSIEVI) values were calculated for each of the nested quadrats of different sizes to indicate the overall vegetation state over the entire year at different spatial scales. The impacts from human activities, a sudden increase in precipitation and permafrost degradation were quantified at different spatial scales using the CGSIEVI values and meteorological data based on the double mass curve method. Three conclusions were derived. First, the vegetation displayed a significant increasing trend over 23.6% of the study area. The areas displaying increases were mainly distributed in the Hoh Xil. Of the area where the vegetation displayed a significant decreasing trend, 72.4% was made up of alpine meadows. Second, more vegetation, especially the alpine meadows, has begun to degenerate or experience more rapid degradation since 2007 due to permafrost degradation and overgrazing. Finally, an active layer depth of 3 m to 3.2 m represents a limiting depth for alpine meadows.

The Qilian Mountain ecosystems play an irreplaceable role in maintaining ecological security in western China. Vegetation, as an important part of the ecosystem, has undergone considerable changes in recent decades in this area, but few studies have focused on the process of vegetation change. A long normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series dataset based on remote sensing is an effective tool to investigate large-scale vegetation change dynamics. The MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) NDVI dataset has provided very detailed regional to global information on the state of vegetation since 2000. The aim of this study was to explore the spatial-temporal characteristics of abrupt vegetation changes and detect their potential drivers in the Qilian Mountain area using MODIS NDVI data with 1 km resolution from 2000 to 2017. The Breaks for Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) algorithm was adopted to detect vegetation breakpoint change times and magnitudes from satellite observations. Our results indicated that approximately 80.1% of vegetation areas experienced at least one abrupt change from 2000 to 2017, and most of these areas were distributed in the southern and northern parts of the study area, especially the area surrounding Qinghai Lake. The abrupt browning changes were much more widespread than the abrupt greening changes for most years of the study period. Environmental factors and anthropogenic activities mainly drove the abrupt vegetation changes. Long-term overgrazing is likely the main cause of the abrupt browning changes. In addition, our results indicate that national ecological protection policies have achieved positive effects in the study area.

The accurate and timely estimation of regional crop biomass at different growth stages is of great importance in guiding crop management decision making. The recent availability of long time series of remote sensing data offers opportunities for crop monitoring. In this paper, four machine learning models, namely random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network (ANN), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) were adopted to estimate the seasonal corn biomass based on field observation data and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance data from 2012 to 2019 in the middle reaches of the Heihe River basin, China. Nine variables were selected with the forward feature selection approach from among twenty-seven variables potentially influencing corn biomass: soil-adjusted total vegetation index (SATVI), green ratio vegetation index (GRVI), Nadir_B7 (2105–2155 nm), Nadir_B6 (1628–1652 nm), land surface water index (LSWI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), Nadir_B4 (545–565 nm), and Nadir_B3 (459–479 nm). The results indicated that the corn biomass was suitably estimated (the coefficient of determination (R²) was between 0.72 and 0.78) with the four machine learning models. The XGBoost model performed better than the other three models (R² = 0.78, root mean squared error (RMSE) = 2.86 t/ha and mean absolute error (MAE) = 1.86 t/ha). Moreover, the RF model was an effective method (R² = 0.77, RMSE = 2.91 t/ha and MAE = 1.91 t/ha), with a performance comparable to that of the XGBoost model. This study provides a reference for estimating crop biomass from MOD43A4 datasets. In addition, the research demonstrates the potential of machine learning techniques to achieve a relatively accurate estimation of daily corn biomass at a large scale.