Monitoring and modelling land surface dynamics in Bermejo River Basin, Argentina: time series analysis of MODIS NDVI data

V. BARRAZA; F. GRINGS; M. SALVIA; P. PERNA; A. CARBAJO; H. KARSZENBAUM

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2013 vol. 34 p. 5429 - 5451

0143-1161

The purpose of this work was to monitor and model land surface phenology over the pastten years in the South American Bermejo River basin using the Moderate ResolutionImaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)product. In order to do this, we evaluated the characteristics of the satellite data andinformation available on the study area?s ecosystem to choose the best model to capturethe temporal dynamics of NDVI in local vegetation (sufficiently complex to provide agood fit and simple enough so that each parameter has an immediate ecological meaning).An ecological interpretation of model parameters was provided. Different landsurfaces showed distinct fluctuations over time in NDVI values, and this informationwas used to improve object-oriented classification. A decision tree classification wasdeveloped to identify spatial patterns of NDVI functional form and the fluctuationsthat these patterns presented from 2000 to 2010. We integrated inter-annual informationin a final map that distinguishes stable areas from changing sites. Assuming thatlarge inter-annual spatial-scale fluctuations were related to climatic events, we establishedhow vegetated land surfaces within the study area responded to these. Our studywas designed to emphasize the interpretation of the spatial and temporal scales of landsurface phenology.