Abstract

CASIANO, Marcos  and  PAZ, Fernando. Phenological characterization of tropical forests using spectral information: experiments with components. Terra Latinoam [online]. 2014, vol.32, n.4, pp.259-271. ISSN 2395-8030.

The characterization of vegetation phenology, particularly that associated with deciduous tropical forests, is an important task in modeling to predict the impacts of climate change and the carbon and water exchanges between the atmosphere and vegetation. Although different experimental methods exist to characterize vegetation phenology, the use of remote sensing allows phenological characterizations that are inexpensive and efficient. Nevertheless, most applications using vegetation indices (VI) use only foliage growth cycle (vegetative and senescent stage) and not the reproductive stage. Flowering is critical to the viability of the vegetation, in addition to its value in apiculture, and it is important to assess it with airborne remote sensing in the visible to infrared segment of the electromagnetic spectrum. A review of experiments and observations of flowering show that the temporal patterns in the bands of red (R) and near infrared (NIR) are opposites, which does not occur in the IV characteristic foliage. From these analyses, an experiment of components was designed to simulate vegetation phenological stages, pre flowering, flowering and post flowering, that hypothetically occur in a deciduous forest. The results show that it is possible to develop an approximate model using the IVIS index to characterize floral induction, onset and peak of flowering, although the end of flowering is confused with the onset of vegetative growth of foliage.

Keywords : vegetation indices; flowering; IVIS; deciduous vegetation; phonological model.

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