Remotely Sensed Phenology for Mapping Biomes and Vegetation Functional Types

This study used remotely-sensed phenology data derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), in a fully supervised decision-tree classification based on the new biome map of South Africa. The objectives were: (i) to investigate the long-term spatial patterns and inter-annual variability in satellite-derived vegetation phenology in relation to the recently revised biome map and (ii) to identify the phenological attributes that distinguishes between the different biomes. The long term phenometrics gave ecologically-meaningful results which reflect our current understanding of the spatial patterns of production and seasonality of vegetation growth in southern Africa. Regression tree analysis based on remotely-sensed phenometrics performed as good as, or better than, previous climate-based predictors of biome distribution.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2009
• Where: IGARSS
• Authors: Konrad J. Wessels, Karen Steenkamp, Graham Von Maltitz, Sally Archibald, Robert Scholes, Simeon Miteff, Asheer Bachoo
• Keywords: Biome Map, IGARSS 2009, Remote Sensing, Remotely-sensed Phenology Data, Spatial Patterns