Natural Resources, School of

 

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1998

Comments

Published in Advances in Space Research (1998) 22(5): 673-676.

Abstract

NDVI-derived Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) was compared with vegetation density, biomass and reflectance measured in the fields. The VCI numerically estimates fluctuation of NDVI related to intra-annual weather change only and is a measure of weather impact on vegetation. Test fields were located in different climatic (annual precipitation 150-700 mm) and ecological zones (semi-desert to steppe-forest) with elevation from 200 to 700 m in Kazakhstan. A range of NDVI variation was from 0.05 to 0.47. The determination coefficient between AVHRR-derived vegetation state and actually measured vegetation density of more than 0.76 was achieved. For the first time it was shown that the VCI-derived vegetation condition data can be effectively used for quantitative assessments of both vegetation state and productivity (density and biomass) over large areas.

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