EVOLUTION OF CERRADO VEGETAL COVER ON A RIVER ISLAND BASED ON ORBITAL IMAGING DATA

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aimed to assess vegetal cover evolution on a river island within the Ecological Station of (EEP), by remote sensing. For this purpose, Normalized Difference Vegetation Indexes were generated for Landsat 1 (1973) and Landsat 5 (1984, 1990, 2000 and 2011) images. Five landscape units were identified in the field: bare soil, Rough savanna, Typical savanna, Forested savanna and Evergreen dry woods. Only Forested savanna and Evergreen dry woods showed poor spectral splitting, being thus considered as a forestry complex. Changes throughout time have occurred in all units, with decreasing in bare soil areas (-2.56 ha year−1), Rough savanna (-0.66 ha year−1) and Typical savanna (-0.94 ha year−1) and with an increase in the Forested savanna (5.97 ha year−1). Thus, the method used in this study was effective for sorting and assessing plant cover of the landscape units studied over time.

Keywords

• remote sensing
• environmental monitoring
• vegetation index