Study of ecosystem functions of urban vegetation using geoinformation system and satellite imaging (on the example of Pinsk)

The structure, condition and efficiency of green areas within various types of urban geotechnical systems (GTS) of Pinsk, a major cultural and industrial center in Polesie, were assessed through a combined analysis of Earth remote sensing data and a differentiated GIS project of the urban area. The vegetation cover of the urban areas of various functional zones was assessed using Sentinel-2 satellite images with the calculation of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf area index (LAI), canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) and the greening degree (%). Relationships between vegetation indices and carbon deposition by urban ecosystems were determined on the basis of subsatellite studies of the structure and condition of vegetation at test sites in the main types of urban ecosystems of Pinsk. The relationships were used to create a differentiated map of CO₂ deposition by vegetation within various GTS of Pinsk and make the assessment that approximately 13,7·10² tons of CO₂ are being deposited annually. A differentiated assessment of the land surface temperature (LST) in various types of Pinsk GTS was carried out using Landsat 8 satellite images and GIS project data. The negative relationships have been found between the averaged for the time of survey LST values, on the one hand, and the LAI and the greening degree values in GTS of Pinsk, on the other. The corresponding values of the determination coefficient (R²) are low (0.27 and 0.35), indicating that the surface temperature recorded by the satellite is influenced not only by vegetation, but also by other urban environmental factors (for example, technogenic heat emissions from industrial GTS, irrigation of plantings in residential estates, flooding of wetlands in the floodplain). The reasons for their influence, which cannot be eliminated in this work, are the significant difference in the effective spatial resolution of LST and LAI images, the high fragmentation of green areas in the built-up part of Pinsk and the small-contour nature of its GTS sections, which together led to LST pixels corresponding to mixed surfaces.

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