Bachelor Thesis

Monitoring des Dürre-Einflusses auf Grasland innerhalb Natura 2000 in Bayern anhand der Fernerkundung

Nathalie Naber (03/2022-09/2022)

Support: Carl Beierkuhnlein

With the progression of climate change extreme weather events like droughts or floods are going to be more common. Throughout 2018, 2019 and 2020 there were severe drought spells in Germany during the summer months. This climate trend leads to great challenges regarding the preservation of ecosystems and their biodiversity. This is especially true for protected areas like the Natura 2000 network of the EU. The aim of Natura 2000 is to protect and maintain the biodiversity of European habitat types. In this thesis selected Natura 2000 areas with grassland habitats are being tested whether they were impacted by the drought of 2018, 2019 and 2020. Furthermore, the hypotheses that habitats with a higher precipitation rate are more affected by drought than habitats with a lower precipitation rate was tested. This question should help to find strategies for the management of drought based on the requirements of the habitats. Remote sensing based on the NDVI which was derived from the Sentinel-2 satellites was used for the monitoring of the habitats. For the analysis, a date was selected from the months July, August, and September. With the NDVI it was proven that the drought had a significant negative impact on the grassland of the Natura 2000 habitats during 2018 and 2019. In 2020 there were a few habitats at times that were not affected. The hypothesis was partially proven to be true. The habitat with the highest precipitation rate had the most negative drought effects on grassland. On the other hand, the second most affected habitat was the one with the lowest precipitation rates.