AN EXAMINATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VEGETATION AND RAINFALL IN AHIR MOUNT (KAHRAMANMARAŞ) USING MODIS NDVI DATA (2000-2010)

Abstract

Collecting information about vegetation on a regular basis is important issue. It is very difficult to study vegetation on a regular basis for large areas, because of huge volume of data coming from traditional methods. On the other hand, remote sensing techniques offer reliable data with less time and labor force. In Turkey vegetation studies have been done by using manual methods which require more labor and money. These studies also do not include continuous data, thus results commonly do not cover whole area and space. In contrast, remote sensing techniques remove all those disadvantages of manual methods. In remote sensing there are several methods to study vegetation status. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is the most used technique. In this study we used MODIS NDVI data with spatial (250 m) and temporal resolution (daily). The aim of the study is to examine relationships between rainfall and NDVI on Ahır Dağ which is located in the north of city of Kahramanmaraş. Several statistical techniques such as correlation, regression and mann kendall have been used to examine vegetation. Results showed that there is a significant relationship between rainfall and vegetation biomass production. Especially three-months cumulative rainfall total represent significant relationship.

Keywords

• Ahır Mount
• Vegetation
• MODIS NDVI
• Remote Sensing
• Rainfall