PROGRAMME

Landsat time series data, freely available in recent years, are commonly used for land cover change detection and monitoring ecosystem disturbances. The thyme habitats are areas under protection because of their high ecological value. However, human activity that leads to competition in land use, mainly from overgrazing, constitutes an increase threat to these habitats. The impact of these disturbances is under-reported and their detection remains essential for thymes conservation. The island of Lemnos was selected as a study area, because of the significant areas of thyme habitats, currently under pressure due to abandonment of the rural countryside, desertification, overgrazing and systematic fires over the last decades. A long-term Landsat time series was created and various vegetation indices have been calculated, such as NDVI, SAVI etc. Change detection algorithm (BFAST) was used for detecting and characterizing significant changes (break points) within the time series. The thyme habitats of Lemnos have been decreasing significantly in terms of size, due to fires and transformation to new grazing areas for livestock production. For the conservation of thyme habitats measures should be taken with participation of local stakeholders, including livestock breeders and beekepers. Satellite monitoring techniques are important tools that could facilitate this conservation process. This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020” in the context of the project “Methodology of spatio-temporal analysis for disturbances on thyme areas, for their conservation and restoration at the level of local communities, combining multi-spectral systems across multiple spatial scales” (MIS 5048198).