Aerial assessment of vegetative establishment in deglaciated areas of Northern Sweden
(2026) NGEK11 20261Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (MGeo)
- Abstract
- As climate change threatens the balance in the arctic and adjacent regions, ecosystems face a multifaceted wave of change. In areas like Scandinavia, extensive glacial retreat has been observed, onset by warming temperatures. Simultaneously as plant-life responds to a changing climate, noticeable shifts have occurred in the spatial distribution of vegetation. Thus, with deglaciation revealing new unvegetated surfaces, this new landscape becomes a prime location to observe vegetative succession. Therefore, by comparing historic and current extents of glaciers, the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) was applied to analyse the potential occurrence and distribution of vegetation within deglaciated areas. Four well-studied reference... (More)
- As climate change threatens the balance in the arctic and adjacent regions, ecosystems face a multifaceted wave of change. In areas like Scandinavia, extensive glacial retreat has been observed, onset by warming temperatures. Simultaneously as plant-life responds to a changing climate, noticeable shifts have occurred in the spatial distribution of vegetation. Thus, with deglaciation revealing new unvegetated surfaces, this new landscape becomes a prime location to observe vegetative succession. Therefore, by comparing historic and current extents of glaciers, the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) was applied to analyse the potential occurrence and distribution of vegetation within deglaciated areas. Four well-studied reference glaciers in northern Sweden were selected for this study. By digitising their glacial extent in aerial orthophotos from 1959/60 and 2024, a deglaciated area was determined by their difference. Within these extents NDVI was then analysed and possible vegetation was estimated based on a false colour composite of the area. The resulting estimates for NDVI were largely negative across the areas uncovered by the glacier with average values between -0.2 and - 0.4, revealing a barren landscape. Only small patches of possible vegetation were observable, accounting for a relatively marginal fraction of the total deglaciated area. The identified patches covered no more than 0.001% for any of the glaciers, with one of the glaciers (Storglaciären, ST) even showing no clear vegetation whatsoever. Even these small patches showed low NDVI values, with no cells of the images exceeding an NDVI of 0.2 within the deglaciated areas. In fact, such low values meant it was difficult to provide much certainty regarding the existence of vegetation in the areas without sufficient validation data. Furthermore, no clear trend was observable between NDVI and distance from glacial margin. This was confirmed by the statistical analysis, which showed that distance from glacial margin was a weak predictor of NDVI, explaining less than 25% of the variability in the data for the different models applied. Instead, transect analysis showed that peaks in NDVI occurred more frequently in proximity to certain features in the landscape. This indicates a comparatively low establishment of vegetation throughout the deglaciated areas, contrary to what has been found by similar studies, suggesting a low succession rate for these areas. However, the low NDVI values cannot be purely attributed to the lack of vegetation. With these values instead reflecting the possible spectral interference effects on the index, the type of vegetative succession observed in the area, as well as certain assumptions within the methodology. This and other limitations in the scope would need to be altered to properly employ such an investigation at a wider scale. The reliance on only the two aerial orthophotos, limits the study due to a short ecological time frame, a binary approach to the changes observed, and lack of validation data. Granted by integrating other key variables into a higher temporal resolution remote sensing approach this could provide invaluable insight into future dynamics given projected continuation of glacial retreat in Scandinavia, and globally. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9240804
- author
- Yeoman, Fergus Toby LU
- supervisor
-
- Lena Ström LU
- organization
- course
- NGEK11 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9240804
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-18 12:51:05
- date last changed
- 2026-06-18 12:51:05
@misc{9240804,
abstract = {{As climate change threatens the balance in the arctic and adjacent regions, ecosystems face a multifaceted wave of change. In areas like Scandinavia, extensive glacial retreat has been observed, onset by warming temperatures. Simultaneously as plant-life responds to a changing climate, noticeable shifts have occurred in the spatial distribution of vegetation. Thus, with deglaciation revealing new unvegetated surfaces, this new landscape becomes a prime location to observe vegetative succession. Therefore, by comparing historic and current extents of glaciers, the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) was applied to analyse the potential occurrence and distribution of vegetation within deglaciated areas. Four well-studied reference glaciers in northern Sweden were selected for this study. By digitising their glacial extent in aerial orthophotos from 1959/60 and 2024, a deglaciated area was determined by their difference. Within these extents NDVI was then analysed and possible vegetation was estimated based on a false colour composite of the area. The resulting estimates for NDVI were largely negative across the areas uncovered by the glacier with average values between -0.2 and - 0.4, revealing a barren landscape. Only small patches of possible vegetation were observable, accounting for a relatively marginal fraction of the total deglaciated area. The identified patches covered no more than 0.001% for any of the glaciers, with one of the glaciers (Storglaciären, ST) even showing no clear vegetation whatsoever. Even these small patches showed low NDVI values, with no cells of the images exceeding an NDVI of 0.2 within the deglaciated areas. In fact, such low values meant it was difficult to provide much certainty regarding the existence of vegetation in the areas without sufficient validation data. Furthermore, no clear trend was observable between NDVI and distance from glacial margin. This was confirmed by the statistical analysis, which showed that distance from glacial margin was a weak predictor of NDVI, explaining less than 25% of the variability in the data for the different models applied. Instead, transect analysis showed that peaks in NDVI occurred more frequently in proximity to certain features in the landscape. This indicates a comparatively low establishment of vegetation throughout the deglaciated areas, contrary to what has been found by similar studies, suggesting a low succession rate for these areas. However, the low NDVI values cannot be purely attributed to the lack of vegetation. With these values instead reflecting the possible spectral interference effects on the index, the type of vegetative succession observed in the area, as well as certain assumptions within the methodology. This and other limitations in the scope would need to be altered to properly employ such an investigation at a wider scale. The reliance on only the two aerial orthophotos, limits the study due to a short ecological time frame, a binary approach to the changes observed, and lack of validation data. Granted by integrating other key variables into a higher temporal resolution remote sensing approach this could provide invaluable insight into future dynamics given projected continuation of glacial retreat in Scandinavia, and globally.}},
author = {{Yeoman, Fergus Toby}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Aerial assessment of vegetative establishment in deglaciated areas of Northern Sweden}},
year = {{2026}},
}