Human factors explain the majority of MODIS-derived trends in vegetation cover in Israel: a densely populated country in the eastern Mediterranean

Using a 14-year MODIS time series, between 2000 and 2014, the study calculated statistical trends in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI—a spectral index representing vegetation cover) to identify areas where vegetation cover has either increased or decreased.  There are 125 study areas chosen where statistically significant changes in NDVI were found and used time series of monthly rainfall, Landsat images, Google Earth images and environmental GIS layers to identify the type and cause of landscape changes.