Indication of long-term changes in the vegetation of abandoned agricultural lands for the forest-steppe zone using NDVI time series

The paper presents results of the analysis of long-term changes in the vegetation cover of abandoned agricultural lands in the forest-steppe zone of the Central Chernozem Region using time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which are measured using MOD13Q1 data. The vegetation index dynamics linked with the proportion of forest communities formed on the abandoned agricultural lands is investigated. The index values for the period of mid-August are the most informative for analyzing the share of forest communities growing on the abandoned agricultural land. Abandoned agricultural lands with coniferous forests have a higher correlation with NDVI than fallows with deciduous species. In the period 2000-2018, for all types of abandoned arable lands, the presence of a positive statistically significant trend component of the vegetation index long-term series is established. Using a slope angle coefficient of the NDVI trend line, a spatio-temporal analysis of the rate of formation of forest stands in the forest-steppe fallows at the beginning of the XXI century was carried out. Features of this process are studied.