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Application of remote sensing techniques toward the role of traditional water bodies with respect to vegetation conditions

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A Correction to this article was published on 25 October 2019

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Abstract

Sri Lanka being an agrarian country, the role of water is important for agricultural production. In Sri Lanka, various tank cascade systems, earthen dams and distribution canals have been accepted as few of the most complex ancient traditional water systems of the world. Rainfall, surface water, groundwater and runoff are linked with each other, they have close interactions to land cover classes such as forests and agriculture. The monitoring of vegetation conditions can show subsurface manifestations of groundwater. In this study, an effort to understand the role of traditional water reservoirs and groundwater recharge was made using remote sensing techniques. We have analyzed various vegetation indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI-2), Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), tasselled cap transformation analysis (TCA brightness, greenness and wetness) and their relations with the existence of soil, vegetation and water. Result shows that EVI, SAVI, and TCA-based Greenness Index indicates good relationship with the vegetation conditions as compared to other indices. Therefore, these indices could play a crucial role in depicting the interaction between soil, vegetation, and water. However, multi-temporal observations can provide significant results about these interactions more accurately.

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  • 25 October 2019

    Co-author, Weena Gera���s institutional affiliation at the time of publication also includes the University of the Philippines Cebu, Cebu, Philippines.

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Acknowledgments

This research was carried out as a part of the research project “ Strategy to enhance resilience to climate and ecosystem changes utilizing traditional bio-production systems in rural Asia” (CECAR-Asia: FY2011~FY2013), which has been supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (E-1101) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. The authors are thankful to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for providing ALOS data under ALOS research announcement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. United Nations University, Institute for Sustainability and Peace (UNU-ISP), Tokyo, Japan

    Ram Avtar, Srikantha Herath, Osamu Saito, Weena Gera, Binaya Mishra & Kazuhiko Takeuchi

  2. Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan

    Ram Avtar

  3. Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan

    Gulab Singh

  4. Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Kazuhiko Takeuchi

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  1. Ram Avtar
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  2. Srikantha Herath
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  4. Weena Gera
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Correspondence to Ram Avtar.

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Avtar, R., Herath, S., Saito, O. et al. Application of remote sensing techniques toward the role of traditional water bodies with respect to vegetation conditions. Environ Dev Sustain 16, 995–1011 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-013-9507-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-013-9507-4

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