Trends in a satellite-derived vegetation index and environmental variables in a restored brackish lagoon

We evaluated relative influence of climatic variables on the plant productivity after lagoon restoration. Chilika Lagoon, the largest brackish lake ecosystem in East Asia, experienced severe problems such as excessive dominance of freshwater exotic plants and rapid debasement of biodiversity associated with decreased hydrologic connectivity between the lagoon and the ocean. To halt the degradation of the lagoon ecosystem, the Chilika Development Authority implemented a restoration project, creating a new channel to penetrate the barrier beach of the lagoon. Using a satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) dataset, we compared the trend of vegetation changes after the lagoon restoration, from April 1998 to May 2014. The time series of NDVI data were decomposed into trend, seasonal, and random components using a local regression method. The results were visualized to understand the traits of spatial distribution in the lagoon. The NDVI trend, indicative of primary productivity, decreased rapidly during the restoration period, and gradually increased (slope coefficient: 2.1×10−4, p<0.05) after two years of restoration. Level of seawater exchange had more influences on plant productivity than local precipitation in the restored lagoon. Higher El Niño/Southern Oscillation increased sea level pressure, and caused intrusion of seawater into the lagoon, and the subsequently elevated salinity decreased the annual mean NDVI. Our findings suggest that lagoon restoration plans for enhancing interconnectivity with the ocean should consider oceanographic effects due to meteorological forcing, and long-term NDVI results can be used as a valuable index for adaptive management of the restoration site.