Establishment of empirical relations between fuel moisture content and the normalised difference vegetation index

Abstract

The object of the present research is to establish empirical relations between the Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) and the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in pasture samples. The study area was the Carillanca Experimental Centre belonging to the Institute of Agriculture and Livestock Research (Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias - INIA), Araucanía Region, Chile. The study period ran from November 2011 to January 2012, in order to determine the variation in vegetation moisture content from spring, when plant cover is most vigorous, to summer when it declines to a minimum due to the summer drought. The application of a linear adjustment model produced correlation coefficients higher than 0.6.