Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra
Increased road-building activity in the arctic has the potential to impact adjacent ecosystems. Roads in permafrost regions are often built atop insulative gravel pads that generate dust plumes, altering soil chemistry and ecosystem function of nearby tundra. Here, we measure edaphic and vegetation...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6338752 2023-05-15T14:57:42+02:00 Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra Ackerman, Daniel E. Finlay, Jacques C. 2019-01-18 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338752/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30659211 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36804-3 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338752/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30659211 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36804-3 © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36804-3 2019-01-27T01:39:19Z Increased road-building activity in the arctic has the potential to impact adjacent ecosystems. Roads in permafrost regions are often built atop insulative gravel pads that generate dust plumes, altering soil chemistry and ecosystem function of nearby tundra. Here, we measure edaphic and vegetation characteristics along transects of decreasing dust deposition perpendicular to the Dalton Highway in northern Alaska. We quantify the impact of dust deposition on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), a proxy for aboveground plant biomass. Deposition of calcium carbonate-rich dust declined from 1.625 grams m−2 day−1 immediately adjacent to the road, to negligible levels 625 meters away. Along these transects from the road, we found declines in soil moisture and temperature, thaw depth, shrub height, and foliar nitrogen content, indicating that tundra roads create corridors with edaphic conditions favorable to vascular plant growth. At sites nearest the road, dust deposited on leaf surfaces reduced measured NDVI values by 0.24 by blocking reflectance properties of the underlying leaves. Our findings on the impacts of roads and dust deposition on adjacent tundra may aid planning of future infrastructure projects. We caution that dust deposition may negatively bias NDVI-based estimates of plant biomass, especially where unpaved roads are common. Text Arctic permafrost Tundra Alaska PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Scientific Reports 9 1 |
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Article Ackerman, Daniel E. Finlay, Jacques C. Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra |
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Article |
description |
Increased road-building activity in the arctic has the potential to impact adjacent ecosystems. Roads in permafrost regions are often built atop insulative gravel pads that generate dust plumes, altering soil chemistry and ecosystem function of nearby tundra. Here, we measure edaphic and vegetation characteristics along transects of decreasing dust deposition perpendicular to the Dalton Highway in northern Alaska. We quantify the impact of dust deposition on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), a proxy for aboveground plant biomass. Deposition of calcium carbonate-rich dust declined from 1.625 grams m−2 day−1 immediately adjacent to the road, to negligible levels 625 meters away. Along these transects from the road, we found declines in soil moisture and temperature, thaw depth, shrub height, and foliar nitrogen content, indicating that tundra roads create corridors with edaphic conditions favorable to vascular plant growth. At sites nearest the road, dust deposited on leaf surfaces reduced measured NDVI values by 0.24 by blocking reflectance properties of the underlying leaves. Our findings on the impacts of roads and dust deposition on adjacent tundra may aid planning of future infrastructure projects. We caution that dust deposition may negatively bias NDVI-based estimates of plant biomass, especially where unpaved roads are common. |
format |
Text |
author |
Ackerman, Daniel E. Finlay, Jacques C. |
author_facet |
Ackerman, Daniel E. Finlay, Jacques C. |
author_sort |
Ackerman, Daniel E. |
title |
Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra |
title_short |
Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra |
title_full |
Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra |
title_fullStr |
Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra |
title_full_unstemmed |
Road dust biases NDVI and alters edaphic properties in Alaskan arctic tundra |
title_sort |
road dust biases ndvi and alters edaphic properties in alaskan arctic tundra |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338752/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30659211 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36804-3 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic permafrost Tundra Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic permafrost Tundra Alaska |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6338752/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30659211 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36804-3 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-36804-3 |
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