Description

The remote sensing data is used extensively for large area vegetation monitoring. Typically the spectral bands used for this purpose are visible and near infrared. NOAA-AVHRR has been used for vegetation monitoring at continental or sub-continental level. Vegetation monitoring at a spatial scale finer than NOAA-AVHRR is essential to understand regional scale processes controlling landscape dynamics. A coarse resolution two – channel wide field sensor ( WiFS) with a spatial Resolution of 188m (is a coarse or low resolution making it possible for only large features in the images to be visible) and bands (two channels) in the range of the red (R, 620–680mm) and the near-infrared (NIR, 770–860mm) wavelengths is excellent for monitoring the general state of vegetation health. Himachal Pradesh in western Himalayas, Gujarat an insular maritime state of Western India and Korean peninsula (Northeast Asia) has been chosen as case studies. In these studies, unsupervised classification using maximum normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are performed, band 1 and band 2 data is processed. The NDVI values will range from -1.0 to 1.0, the maximum value suggests the greenest vegetation. Non-vegetation features, where the reflectance in red and near-infrared spectrum are not much different, have the NDVI value close to zero. WiFS data therefore has been successfully used to characterize vegetation of different bio-climatic situations. For annual forest cover mapping it saves time and money while providing equally efficient forest cover data at 1: 250,000 scale, unlike LISS/Landsat22 or NOAA-AVHRR. Hence WiFS is ideal for rapid national level forest cover mapping or even at the state level for periodic monitoring.