Determining the Vegetation Indices (NDVI) from Landsat 8 Satellite Data.

Abstract

A step-wise calculation approach was employed in ArcGIS 10.2.2 to identify the apple area, viz. (I) delineation of non-vegetation classes using NDVI threshold (ii) unsupervised classification to Delineate forest plantation and (iii) supervised classification for the identification of apple orchards. A non- vegetation classes like wastelands, water bodies, settlements has been masked using Vegetation Index (VI) derived using remote sensing data. Vegetation has a distinctive spectral signature that is characterized by low reflectance in visible region of solar optical spectrum as well as high reflectance in infrared (IR) spectrums. The combination of these two spectral regions allows classification of vegetation. In the present study normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), Where NIR is the reflectance in near infrared band and R is the reflectance in red band of satellite data. NDVI indicates the vigor of vegetation. Higher NDVI indicates higher amount of green vegetation on ground. NDVI of non-vegetation classes are generally lower than vegetation classes.