Characterizing Vegetation Metrics Across Multiple Habitats and Spatial Scales at Daring Lake, NT

Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to monitor vegetation dynamics and infer changes in productivity and carbon fluxes globally and in particular, in the Arctic, where remote sensing helps overcome lack of access in remote regions. This study examined how ground-based NDVI related...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Elliott, Claire
Format: Thesis
Language:unknown
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://curve.carleton.ca/636d0f5f-5c6a-4613-b21b-cc51cb412763
http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca/record=b3942792
https://doi.org/10.22215/etd/2016-11661
Description
Summary:Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to monitor vegetation dynamics and infer changes in productivity and carbon fluxes globally and in particular, in the Arctic, where remote sensing helps overcome lack of access in remote regions. This study examined how ground-based NDVI related to vegetation metrics, notably leaf area index (LAI) and percent vascular vegetation cover, across three tundra vegetation communities and across multiple measurement resolutions at Daring Lake, NT, in Canada’s Southern Arctic. Results demonstrated that LAI and percent vascular vegetation cover strongly correlated with NDVI, with NDVI showing the greatest responses to LAI at the 5 m resolution. However, NDVI did tend to saturate at LAI greater than 1.5. Stepwise linear regression produced some differences in the NDVI-LAI relationship between the three sites but when analyzed with an adapted version of the Shaver et al. (2007) model, the relationship did not appear to differ greatly between sites.