Monitoring vegetation phenology using MODIS

Remote Sensing of Environment
By: , and 

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Abstract

Accurate measurements of regional to global scale vegetation dynamics (phenology) are required to improve models and understanding of inter-annual variability in terrestrial ecosystem carbon exchange and climate–biosphere interactions. Since the mid-1980s, satellite data have been used to study these processes. In this paper, a new methodology to monitor global vegetation phenology from time series of satellite data is presented. The method uses series of piecewise logistic functions, which are fit to remotely sensed vegetation index (VI) data, to represent intra-annual vegetation dynamics. Using this approach, transition dates for vegetation activity within annual time series of VI data can be determined from satellite data. The method allows vegetation dynamics to be monitored at large scales in a fashion that it is ecologically meaningful and does not require pre-smoothing of data or the use of user-defined thresholds. Preliminary results based on an annual time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data for the northeastern United States demonstrate that the method is able to monitor vegetation phenology with good success.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Monitoring vegetation phenology using MODIS
Series title Remote Sensing of Environment
DOI 10.1016/S0034-4257(02)00135-9
Volume 84
Issue 3
Year Published 2003
Language English
Publisher Elsevier
Contributing office(s) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Description 5 p.
First page 471
Last page 475
Online Only (Y/N) N
Additional Online Files (Y/N) N
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