Land cover and vegetation carbon stock changes in Greece: A 29-year assessment based on CORINE and Landsat land cover data

Alexandra Gemitzi; Reyadh Albarakat; Foteini Kratouna; Venkat Lakshmi

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147408

Land cover and vegetation carbon stock changes in Greece: A 29-year assessment based on CORINE and Landsat land cover data

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Sep 10:786:147408. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147408. Epub 2021 Apr 29.

Authors

Alexandra Gemitzi¹, Reyadh Albarakat², Foteini Kratouna³, Venkat Lakshmi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece. Electronic address: agkemitz@env.duth.gr.
² University of Virginia, Engineering Systems and Environment, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. Electronic address: ra6hx@virginia.edu.
³ Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece. Electronic address: fotekrat@env.duth.gr.
⁴ University of Virginia, Engineering Systems and Environment, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. Electronic address: vlakshmi@virginia.edu.

PMID: 33964766
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147408

Abstract

Evaluation of carbon sequestration in various land cover types is a valuable tool for environmental policies targeting towards minimization of CO₂ emissions and climate change impacts. For the past few decades, remotely sensed information on land cover has been used as useful alternative to ground observations and has proved to be a robust tool for studying land use / land cover (LULC) changes. The present work deals with the assessment of land-cover changes in a Mediterranean country - Greece, where expected climate change impacts and desertification risk are stated to be severe. This work focused on the CORINE land cover inventory at a spatial resolution of 100 m from 1990 to 2018 and selected Landsat images at 30 m spatial resolution for 1990, 2000 and 2018. Results indicated that the dominant land-cover changes in Greece over the predefined 29-year period, are related to land transformation from Non-irrigated arable land to Irrigated areas, implying an intensification of agricultural practices. Natural grasslands lose a substantial part of their areas transforming into Sclerophyllus vegetation and Sparsely vegetated areas. Forests gain areas from Transitional woodland-shrub and Olive groves increase their extent indicating an overall transition to woody vegetation. Estimation of Vegetation Carbon Stocks indicated a moderate decrease in the 1990 decade followed by a significant increase up to 2012 and a slight decrease thereafter. Forests of all types are by far the most important carbon sinks. Possible implications of country's recent economic crisis were examined and results indicated that economic welfare of the country seems to favor certain land cover types such as Mixed Forests and Permanently Irrigated land, but also preservation of the Vegetation Carbon Stocks.

Keywords: Greece; LULC changes; Land cover; Land use; Vegetation carbon stocks.