Application of Remote Sensing Methods for Sustainable Rangeland Management

Abstract

This study was conducted in ‘’ELbaja’’ area in White Nile State to investigate the use of remote sensing based methods for sustainable rangelands managements. Traditional range assessment techniques usually are expensive, time consuming and requires a lot of efforts, remote sensing techniques known to assist saving cost and effort in this respect. The objective was to investigate the use of practical remote sensing data and appropriate data processing means for sustainable rangeland management. The study used MODIS images, as a main data. MODIS NDVI image 250 m resolutions were used as a main remote sensing data. Result showed that although MODIS images are of low resolution but found to be useful for assessing rangelands and have the advantage to be obtained free of change. Density slice feature using ENVI was used to give different scales of NDVI values which enabled to assess vegetation intensity at different sites that could be used for many practical decisions. Water point's co-ordinates used for creation of vector file which overlayed on the NDVI image, then levels of vegetation densities were used to show possibility of investigating plan density in relation to water point's distribution for planning water distribution in the rangeland area. The study result explain the means and importance of using remote sensing to identify spatial and distribution of plant intensity and distribution and using that to help in water distribution, protection and seed collection. Vegetation densities were also used to indicate areas more susceptible to fires, and areas for potential seed collection. The study recommended the use of simple remote sensing means at with different range management units, and that range managers should develop basic skills in using remote sensing (RS) methods for management decision, since they proved to be practical and useful. Provided that more advanced technical application may lead to more deep and useful information.