Remote assessment of the ecosystem functions of urban vegetation (on the example of Gomel city)

The possibilities of using satellite earth remote sensing (ERS) data for a differentiated assessment of the structure, condition and efficiency of green areas in cities are analyzed on the example of large Belarusian city Gomel. An approach is proposed for the combined use of ERS data and city GIS project differentiated by the types of urban geotechnical systems (GTS). The vegetation cover of the urban areas of various functional zones was assessed using Sentinel-2 images with the calculation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf area index (LAI), canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) and the greening degree (%). An assessment of the relationship between vegetation indices and carbon deposition by urban ecosystems was made on the basis of the sub-satellite studies at test sites of the structure and state of vegetation in the main types of urban ecosystems of Gomel. The assessment was used to create a differentiated map of CO2 deposition by vegetation in various GTS of Gomel.
A differentiated assessment of the daytime land surface temperature (LST) of Gomel GTS was carried out using Landsat images and GIS project data. The significant negative relationships have been found between the averaged for the time of survey LST values and the LAI and the greening degree values in various types of GTS of the large city. The coefficients of the determination of the relationships of the average LST values with the average LAI values and the greening degree of all GTS sections in the city were equal to 0.41 and 0.48, respectively.

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