remote sensing Article Using Long-Term Earth Observation Data to Reveal the Factors Contributing to the Early 2020 Desert Locust Upsurge and the Resulting Vegetation Loss Lei Wang 1, Wen Zhuo 1, Zhifang Pei 2, Xingyuan Tong 3, Wei Han 4,5 and Shibo Fang 1,3,* 1 State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China;
[email protected] (L.W.);
[email protected] (W.Z.) 2 College of Earth Science, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China;
[email protected] 3 Collaborative Innovation Centre on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China;
[email protected] 4 National Meteorological Center of China, Beijing 100081, China;
[email protected] 5 Numerical Weather Prediction Center of Chinese Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Massive desert locust swarms have been threatening and devouring natural vegetation and agricultural crops in East Africa and West Asia since 2019, and the event developed into a rare and globally concerning locust upsurge in early 2020. The breeding, maturation, concentration and migration of locusts rely on appropriate environmental factors, mainly precipitation, temperature, vegetation coverage and land-surface soil moisture. Remotely sensed images and long-term meteo- rological observations across the desert locust invasion area were analyzed to explore the complex drivers, vegetation losses and growing trends during the locust upsurge in this study. The results revealed that (1) the intense precipitation events in the Arabian Peninsula during 2018 provided Citation: Wang, L.; Zhuo, W.; Pei, Z.; Tong, X.; Han, W.; Fang, S.