Remote sensing of browning trends in the Alaskan boreal forest

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2011Vegetation health can be monitored using a time series of remotely sensed images by calculating the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We assessed temporal trends throughout an NDVI time series with three sensors: Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat Thematic Mapper/Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (TM/ETM+). There has been debate over the reliability of AVHRR sensor NDVI data in the circumboreal region. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to first use MODIS and Landsat TM/ETM+ data and assess declining trends within twelve Landsat scene footprints across boreal Alaska and second use Landsat TM/ETM+ data to assess NDVI trends at a stand-level in eastern boreal Alaska. For the first objective, there were significant (p-value