NewzVille Desk
Mountain ecosystems are particularly sensitive to climate change, which escalate global risks and disasters.
Google Earth Engine (GEE)¸ is widely used for environmental monitoring and Earth observation, including studies of land degradation, soil and dust dynamics, urban growth, temperature changes, and health. It simplifies large-scale analysis by reducing data preprocessing and storage needs.
Researchers from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), along with collaborators from India and abroad, turned to GEE to track Uttarakhand’s vegetation from 2001 to 2022, along with pollution and climate responses.
They used a deceptively simple measurement, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), to analyse changes in vegetation.
The team led by Dr Umesh Dumka from ARIES, along with international collaborators, published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (a Springer Nature Publication), revealed a story of climate sensitivity, seasonal resilience, and growing concern.
The researchers observed declining vegetation trends, linked to deforestation, agricultural expansion, illegal logging, and increasing pollution from urban and industrial sources.
The data suggest that pollution doesn’t affect vegetation uniformly—it hits certain locations harder, compounding the stress caused by climate change
These changes threaten biodiversity, water resources, and the natural balance that millions of people downstream depend on.
