remote sensing Article NDVI as a Proxy for Estimating Sedimentation and Vegetation Spread in Artificial Lakes—Monitoring of Spatial and Temporal Changes by Using Satellite Images Overarching Three Decades Loránd Szabó 1,*, Balázs Deák 2 , Tibor Bíró 3, Gareth J. Dyke 4 and Szilárd Szabó 1 1 Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformation Systems, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1., 4032 Debrecen, Hungary;
[email protected] 2 MTA-ÖK Lendület Seed Ecology Research Group, Institute of Ecology and Botany, Centre for Ecological Research, Alkotmány u. 2-4., 2163 Vácrátót, Hungary;
[email protected] 3 Department of Regional Water Management, National University of Public Service Faculty of Water Sciences, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky 12-14., 6500 Baja, Hungary;
[email protected] 4 Department of Evolutionary Zoology, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1., 4032 Debrecen, Hungary;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +36-52-512900 (ext. 22326); Fax: +36-52-512945 Received: 29 March 2020; Accepted: 3 May 2020; Published: 6 May 2020 Abstract: Observing wetland areas and monitoring changes are crucial to understand hydrological and ecological processes. Sedimentation-induced vegetation spread is a typical process in the succession of lakes endangering these habitats. We aimed to survey the tendencies of vegetation spread of a Hungarian lake using satellite images, and to develop a method to identify the areas of risk. Accordingly, we performed a 33-year long vegetation spread monitoring survey. We used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) to assess vegetation and open water characteristics of the basins.