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Evolution of vegetation cover since records began to be kept
Evolution of vegetation cover since records began to be kept
Note: all images shown below are taken from the months of March and April. Please note that the images are sometimes slightly blurred by filters, but we have tried to capture the clearest pictures.
The EoBrowser application gives access to images from 1984, but there is no record for 2013 and 2014. The years with the clearest records have been selected in an attempt to follow a certain periodicity.
The following data have been taken using the EoBrowser satellite (created by ESA to visualise our planet from space and serve as a source for research), with the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) filter, as indicated in the image on the left, which includes a legend.
From 2010 onwards there is a white centre because this is when the wetland was recognised as water because peat mining stopped. The most recent image, from 2022, shows a degradation of the vegetation in the area, possibly due to climate change and low rainfall in 2021.
It can be seen, more or less, how the vegetation cover follows a relatively uniform pattern. There are some years, such as 2018, where there is an increase in vegetation coinciding with a period of high rainfall. The opposite happens in 2012, where there is hardly any vegetation cover coinciding with a period of drought.
1984
1995
2008
1986
1998
2012
1989
2001
2016
1992
2004
2018
2022
Comparison of vegetation cover 1985-2022
Evolution of water cover since records began to be kept
Evolution of water cover since records began to be kept
The following data have been taken using the EoBrowser satellite (created by ESA to visualise our planet from space and serve as a source for research), with the Normalised Difference Water Index (NDWI) filter, as indicated in the image on the left, which includes a legend.
In relation to the water surface area, there are no major changes from one year to the next, perhaps the most relevant point is that in 2018 there seems to be a larger surface area due to the high levels of precipitation and in 2021 it is reduced due to the low levels of precipitation and high temperatures.
It would have been interesting to look at the water table in 2010, which was when the exploitation was stopped and allowed to flood artificially, but the data obtained are valuable to see that the increase or decrease in rainfall and temperatures do not really affect the peat bog to any great extent due to its depth of 20 metres.
Note: All the images shown below are taken from the months of March and April. Please note that sometimes the images are slightly blurred by the filters, but we have tried to capture the clearest pictures.
With this filter there is a record of all the years since 2017, so all of them have been taken into account.
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023-01-22 17-04-46_Trim.mp4Comparison of water cover 2016-2022
Evolution of water quality since records began to be kept
Evolution of water quality since records began to be kept
The following data were taken by the EoBrowser satellite (created by ESA to visualise our planet from space and serve as a source for research), with the Ulyssys Water Quality Viewer (UWQV) filter, as indicated in the image on the left, which includes a legend.
The image on the left shows how the water in the peat bogs is being eutrophicated, but not by a large amount of sediment following the colour index, as green and dark green predominate.
In the sequence of a large number of images we can see how, in some years, there are signs of eutrophication, but only irregularly. Furthermore, neither a positive nor a negative evolution can be seen, as the satellite only contains images up to 2018.
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
EVOLUTION OF THE SURFACE AREA
The following data were acquired using the EoBrowser satellite (created by ESA to visualise our planet from space and serve as a source for research), with the short-wave infrared (SWIR) filter, as shown in the image on the left.
This filter has allowed the data acquisition to be more accurate by showing the gap with a higher contrast compared to other filters.
The table on the left shows the evolution of the lagoon's water surface over the years. The first year taken is 2005 because in previous years the image was very blurred, which made it difficult to obtain data. The graph shows how, at the beginning, the surface area is very small and remains so until 2010, when the surface area begins to grow considerably, reaching five times the surface area of 2007 in 2017.
Method used
To obtain the data represented in the graph, I have used the filter mentioned above and a tool of Eo Browser that allows to measure the surface of the marked surface, which in this case is represented in the image. Carried out in February 2005 until February 2023.
This method causes the data to be an approximation and not totally objective.
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