Evaluating the vegetation destruction and recovery of Wenchuan earthquake using MODIS data

The Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 has led to huge damage to land surface vegetation in northwest Sichuan, one of the typical ecological fragile regions in China. In this paper, the vegetation degradation by the earthquake and its recovery after the disaster are evaluated from analysis of MODIS Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) time series products and other ancillary GIS data. The results suggest that local vegetation GPP after the earthquake in the heavy afflicted area has decreased by 22%. The local vegetation productivity in the heavy afflicted area had recovered to 84 and 87% after 1 and 2 months later. Since August 2008, the vegetation productivity has increased to a nearly normal level.