Functional equivalence of spectral vegetation indices, Remote Sensing of Environment

NumerollS formulae. vegetation indices. have been developed to reduce multispectral scanner (MSS) data to a single number for assessing vegetation charactel;stics such as species, leaf area, stress, and biomass. Part I of this report gives the history and fonnulae of some four dozen vegetation indices. Studies investigating the empirical relationships among vegetation indices are summarized. Part II of this report develops the idea of two vegetation indices being functionally equivalent: Two vegetation indices are taken to be equivalent for making a set of decisions, if the decisions made on the basis of one index could have been equally well made on the basis of the other index. The utility of these ideas is explored in the context of alarm models and graphical displays. Several,,;dely used indices are shown to be equivalent