Monitoring Iran’s Vegetation Density & Coverage via MODIS Satellite Imagery

2017 to 2020

This article shows the state of vegetation health across Iran between May 2017 and May 2020 as calculated using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from NASA’s MODIS satellite, via the Soar platform. The month of May was chosen because it is the best maximum representation of vegetation growth across the region. This analysis takes into account the effects of both climate and topography.

The darkest green areas mainly consist of mixed dense Caspian Hyrcanian (northern Iran) and Zagros mountain oak forests (western Iran). However, it should be noted that significant intensive farming is also found both around the aforementioned locations and also throughout the nation as a whole.

Caspian Hyrcanian forest in northern Iran (left) & Semi-arid landscape farming in eastern Iran (right)

In particular, substantial areas of intensive farming has been developed over the last three years in central, southern and north-western Iran, further drawing on water resources from local landscapes, which are otherwise considered semi-arid or even desert (brown to beige).

Interestingly, over the past 3 years, overall Iran is becoming greener during the month of May as shown with areas of increased farmland throughout the nation, no matter the landscape or terrain.

The subset image below shows the growth in both intensity as well as extent of farming around Shiraz, Fars Province between 2017 and 2020.

The Iranian plateau is also home to many lakes which are found at different altitudes and landscapes. The last two winters in Iran have seen above average rain and snowfall which has resulted in several interesting changes:

🔗 Infilling of Lake Urmia in north western Iran

🔗 Increased surface run off from mountains forming greener valleys

🔗Unprecedented flooding and subsequent filling of many desert lakes such as the Jaz Murian Depression in south east Iran which increased to over 3,000km2 (see below)

In conclusion, it is apparent that whilst Iran is infact ‘greening’ the merits and source of this increased vegetation density and extent is worthy of further analysis. On one hand, the welcomed increase in rain and snow-fall in the past couple of winters has helped, but it is also clearly evident that farming has also drastically increased. The imagery data in this poster shows that this increase is not limited to just one region, rather it is widespread to include semi-arid and desert landscapes. Finally, the state of Iran’s mountain forests is undetermined and it is hard to ascertain their current status with the supplied imagery data, however it is hoped that increased forestry management by authorities is working

Special notes:

1. This poster does not take into consideration areas of afforestation and deforestation which are known to occur in the Caspian Hyrcanian forests.
2. This article does not distinguish between landuse classifications, rather just focuses on vegetation health and extent.
3. Areas of little or no vegetation are shown as ‘white’, which can be seen on snow-capped mountains, as well as lakes.
4. This article is based on a rolling 8 day averaged NDVI dataset, with a 500m pixel resolution. It is not intended to be a micro-level study.
5. Output datasets are available on request from Soar.Earth

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