Spatial Greening Pattern Estimation of Himachal Pradesh, India Using IRS-P6 AWiFS Seasonal Data

The complexity and inaccessibility of many regions of the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh create difficulties to manually measure land cover in terms of vegetation. In this sense, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) and transformed vegetation index (TVI) which are directly related to percentage ground cover, total green biomass, leaf area index and the photosynthetic activity, are based on the reflective properties of vegetation. The objective of this study was to use the remote sensing derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) and transformed vegetation index (TVI)) for the spatial estimation of the seasonal greening pattern of the State of Himachal Pradesh. Satellite imagery sets (IRS P6 AWiFS multi-spectral) were used to estimate NDVI, SAVI and TVI for the three months period. The seasonal phenological cycle in the study area of the State was clearly visible from the analysis of the imagery sets.