Abstract

Modeling Temporal Variations of Vegetation Cover with Rainfall Using NOAA AVHRR Data: A Case Study of Western Ghats, Goa




The Western Ghats is one of the ten hottest biodiversity spots of the world. The major aim of the present work is the determination of temporal variations of vegetation cover and modeling its relationship with rainfall using NOAA AVHRR data during the last decade for a portion of Western Ghats. The area of Western Ghats falling in Goa has been taken as the study area. Monthly maximum cloud free NOAA AVHRR satellite data available from Satellite Active Archives (SAA) has been used to derive Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The monthly averages of rainfall have been derived from the rainfall surfaces developed using ground data. The development of a statistical model to study the relationship between patterns of changes in NDVI and rainfall for the study period using the data obtained from satellite images and ground observations in ongoing for the study area. Further, it is important to study the above relationships for different vegetation types present in the study area and to consider different agro-ecological regions to represent the variables that affect on vegetation types and growth rate. Findings of the present study will show the potentials of low resolution NOAA AVHRR data for monitoring the changes in land cover over wet, intermediate and dry zones in Western Ghats. The developed statistical model can be used for other regions of Western Ghats and also for other ecosystems in India.