International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Saudi Arabia is located within an arid to semi-arid region, however, it is a biological diverse area, because species have adapted to the adverse ecological circumstances. One of the most important habitats in Saudi Arabia is the Mahazat Alsayd natural reserve. Understanding changes in vegetation cover over time is important for studying the habitats present in the reserve, and for analyzing the availability of animal fodder, as well as the extent of vegetation regeneration. Using remote sensing data and field observations, we detected that the vegetation coverage of Mahazat Alsayd decreased by 80% from 1995 to 2015. Multiple factors are currently affecting the structure of the plant and animal communities within the reserve. Such factors include ecological changes and human activities. These factors might lead to the extinction of some plant and/or animal species in the near future, either directly or indirectly. Thus, a comprehensive management plan must be implemented in the reserve as soon as possible to maintain and recover vegetation to provide sufficient animal feed, facilitating the sustainable conservation of animals and plants within the reserve. The vegetation cover assessment presented here provides an important source of information for conservation planning.

Index Terms—Conservation, natural reserve, remote sensing, vegetation.

The authors are with the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Saudi Arabia (e-mail: alnamazi@gmail.com, kmalki99@gmail.com).

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Cite: Ali A. Al-Namazi and Khalid A. Almalki, "Assessing the Impacts of Vegetation Cover Change in Mahazat Alsayd Natural Reserve Using Remote Sensing and Ground-Truth Data," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 180-185, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).