Comparison of vegetation indices (atmospheric corrected based index) for mangrove vegetation mapping at Kelantan Delta

Abstract

A study was conducted at Kelantan Delta to identify mangrove forest types based on Vegetation Index (VI) approach. The aim of this study were to evaluate and compare the performance of different VI (Atmospheric based corrected VI), derives from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) 2000 satellite. In this study four indices were used, namely the Global Environmental Monitoring Index (GEMi), Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation Index (ARVI), Modified Aerosol Free Vegetation Index Mid­ Infrared (Modified AFRIM1R) and Modified Aerosol Free Vegetation Index Shortwave-Infrared (Modified AFRiswiR). Total of five main mangrove forest types which were Avicennia, Avicennia-Sonneratia, Mixed Acrostichium, Achantus­ Sonneratia, and Mixed Sonneratia have been recorded during field investigation and the performances of different VI were analyzed using Spatial-Modeler module in Erdas Imagine environment. The results demonstrated that the indices range for Modified AFRiswJR at Kelantan Delta was found to be well separated and therefore five classes have been generated.