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Monitoring the vegetation health over India during contrasting monsoon years using satellite remote sensing indices

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Abstract

The detection and monitoring of drought-related vegetation stress over a large spatial area have become possible with the use of satellite-based remote sensing indices, namely, vegetation condition index (VCI) and temperature condition index (TCI). In particular, the water (precipitation)-related moisture stress during drought may be determined using the VCI, while the temperature-related stress using the TCI. An attempt is made here to investigate and demonstrate the importance of these indices over India during the contrasting monsoon years, 2009, 2010, and 2013, termed as meteorological drought, wet, and normal monsoon years, respectively. The overall health of the vegetation during these years is compared using the vegetation health index (VHI). The advantage of VHI over the VCI and TCI is also shown. An assessment of drought over India is then made using the combined information of VCI, TCI, and VHI. The occurrence of vegetative drought over Rajasthan, Gujrat, and Andhra Pradesh is confirmed using drought assessment index, which shows very low value (well below 40) during 2009 over these regions. The area-averaged time series indices as well as spatial maps over the state of Uttar Pradesh show higher thermal stress and poor vegetation health during 2009 as compared to 2010 and 2013. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized water-level index (SWI) are used to validate the results obtained using the remote sensing indices.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. The authors would also like to thank the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, for providing financial help in the form of research project. AK thanks DST for providing research fellowship. Acknowledgements are also due to the NOAA for making available the AVHRR-based satellite images used for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. K Banerjee Centre of Atmospheric and Ocean Studies, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, UP, 211002, India

    Arnab Kundu & Suneet Dwivedi

  2. M N Saha Centre of Space Studies, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, UP, 211002, India

    Suneet Dwivedi

  3. Department of Remote Sensing and GIS, Vidyasagar University, Midnapur, West Bengal, India

    Dipanwita Dutta

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  1. Arnab Kundu
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  2. Suneet Dwivedi
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  3. Dipanwita Dutta
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Correspondence to Suneet Dwivedi.

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Kundu, A., Dwivedi, S. & Dutta, D. Monitoring the vegetation health over India during contrasting monsoon years using satellite remote sensing indices. Arab J Geosci 9, 144 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-015-2185-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-015-2185-9

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