History of the NDVI

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History of the NDVI Vegetation Indices

• Compton Tucker
• NASA/UMD/CCSPO

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What are the NDVI, EVI, etc. and why do we use
them?

• VIs are estimates of the visible light absorbed
  by plant canopies --the photosynthetic capacity
  (Sellers 1985 1987, Myneni et al. 95)
• This energy drives photosynthesis.
• Thus S NDVI over time GPP
• The NDVI is not greenness! -- what does this
  mean anyway? and is not biomass (biological
  mass)!
• The NDVI does not saturate any more than
  photosynthesis saturates. Both are limited by
  a lack of photons in the red.
• The EVI is not as highly correlated to APAR as
  the NDVI because the EVI is more weighted to the
  near infrared.
• More on NDVI, EVI comparisons later.

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Vegetation Indices from Susan Ustin
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Who invented the NDVI?
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Spectral Vegetation Indices
Birth and McVey 1968 Measuring color of growing
turf with a reflectance spectrometer Agronomy
Journal 60(6)640-645. Jordan 1969 Derivation of
leaf area index from quality of light on the
forest floor Ecology 50(4)1271-1318. Pearson
and Miller 1972. Remote mapping of standing
crop biomass for estimation of the productivity
of the shortgrass prairie. Proc. 8th Intl. Symp.
Remote Sens. Environ., Univ. Michigan, pp.
1357-1381. Rouse et al. 1974 Monitoring
vegetation systems in the Great Plains with ERTS.
Proc. 3rd ERTS-1 Symp. pp. 301-319. NO
LITERATURE CITED, a few paragraphs on vegetation
indices, and they used the TVI not the
NDVI!. Tucker 1977 Use of Near Infrared/Red
Radiance Ratios for Estimating Vegetation
Biomass and Physiological Status. X-923-109,
Greenbelt, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 41 p.
(preprint of Tucker 1979 RSE). Deering 1978
Rangeland reflectance characteristics measured
by aircraft and spacecraft sensors. College
Station, TX, Texas AM University 338 p.
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Spectral Vegetation Indices
Birth and McVey 1968 Measuring color of growing
turf with a reflectance spectrometer Agronomy
Journal 60(6)640-645. Other papers Birth, G.
S. 1977 Optical properties of blue cheese as
affected by aging J. Dairy Sci.
6057-58. Birth, Davis, and Townsend 1976.
Scatter coefficient as a measure of pork
quality J. Animal Sci. 43238-239. Jordan 1969
4 data points and no other publications on topic.
Many other publications on a range of tropical
ecology topics though. Rouse et al. and Deering
et al. -- no subsequent journal articles on NDVI
(Verba volent, scripta manet), used the
Transformed Vegetation Index. TVI
SQRT(NDVI0.5). Rouse et al. 1974 However,
previous studies have shown that the combinations
of these four parameters can provide more useful
parameters for specific comparisons. What
previous studies? -- Japanese researcher in the
1960s working in photosynthesis published a paper
on red and near IR methods but I lost the
reference that someone sent me.
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Spectral Vegetation Indices
gt2,800 articles in referred literature _at_ Web of
Science gt46,000 citations of these
articles Wide use in many earth science
disciplines Greatest use of any remote sensing
measurement Greatest use by many times of data
from AVHRR as of June 1, 2006 using criteria
vegetation index, normalized difference
vegetation index, NDVI, papers that cite
Tucker 1979 or Richardson and Wiegand 1977
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Top 20 VI Article Journals, from a total of 386
Journals, from ISI
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Top 10 cited VI papers
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HistCite
From Web of Science
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11-20 VI most cited papers
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2 very important questions we faceHuman-acceler
ated climate changeUnprecedented biological
diversity loss
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Measured Surface Temperature the past 150 years
5 warmest years 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
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We must protect the Earth
Apollo 12s Classic Earth Rise from Moon
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Mauna Loa Observatory Charles David Keeling
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Atmospheric CO2 measurements
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Where are we?
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How did I get here today?
In situ hyperspectral grassland studies 1971-73
leaf radiation modeling 1972-73
Plant physiological basis for band selection,
NDVI, hand-held instruments 1973-1975
Extensive field testing Colorado Yellowstone
1972-74 Iceland, Sweden, England, Scotland,
Wales 1976 Beltsville USA 1977-79
Senegal Use NDVI from NOAA satellites
1981-1983 work continued and expanded by Danish
and other scientists
Start large-scale environmental studies with many
others
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Graduate School-Colo. State Univ.
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Leaf Reflectance Absorption
Bean leaf x 3900
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M.S. and Ph. D Work
1975 "Shortgrass Praire Spectral Measurements",
C.J. Tucker, L.D. Miller, and R.L. Pearson,
Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing,
41(9)1157-1162. 1976 "A Hand-held Spectral
Radiometer to Estimate Gramineous Biomass," R.L.
Pearson, L. D. Miller, and C.J. Tucker, Applied
Optics, 16(2)416-418. 1976 "Sensor Design for
Monitoring Vegetation Canopies," C.J. Tucker and
E.L. Maxwell, Photogrammetric Engineering and
Remote Sensing, 42(11)1399-1410. 1977 "Leaf
Optical System Modeled as a Stochastic Process,"
C.J. Tucker and M.W. Garratt, Applied Optics,
16635-642. 1977 "Asymptotic Nature of Grass
Canopy Reflectance," C. J. Tucker, Applied
Optics, 16(8)1059-1067. 1977 "Spectral
Estimation of Grass Canopy Variables", C. J.
Tucker, Remote Sensing of Environment, 6(1)11-28.
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Close to Missoula in 1974
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Field Work in Iceland July 1976
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Field Work in Iceland July 1976
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Field Work in Iceland July 1976
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Beltsville USA winter wheat biomass
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Winter wheat biomass harvest
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S NDVI vs. total dry biomass
Explained 80 of biomass accumulation
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Satellite Test of NDVI-Biomass Results1 mm/yr/km
North-South precipitation gradient
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Senegals Ferlo Area during rainy season
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Marked contrasts between the dry and wet seasons
(300 mm/yr _at_ Senegal)
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Satelliteground study 1981-1983
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NOAA AVHRR 8-km NDVI Data Set
Radiation
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The GIMMS Project1982
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NDVI Maximum Value Composites
8-km output bin from 4-km spatial resolution data
at subpoint All orbits, all data processed,
equal area map projection Scan Angle Restriction
to /- 40 degrees
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Average NDVI 1981-2006
40,000 orbits of satellite data
NDVI (ir- red)
(irred)
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Satellite NDVI data sources
NOAA-16
NPP
NOAA-18
NOAA 9
NOAA-17
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NDVI AVHRR-MODIS matchup
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Different AVHRR NDVI Data Sets

• Pathfinder from NASA/GSFC DAAC
• NOAA Global Vegetation Index or GVI
• GIMMS data set of NASA/GSFC
• Others also
• All share more or less identical input data
• Different calibrations, different volcanic
  corrections, different solar zenith angle
  corrections

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NDVI problems with PAL and GVI for 35oN - 35oS
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What could have been done better?

• Why wasnt the AVHRR ever improved for better
  NDVI data by NOAA?
• Narrow channel 1 and channel 2
• Global 1 km data -- its only 15 gb a day!
• Operate 6 channels all the time instead of 5
• Theres no L in NOAA!

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What needs to be done better?
The earth science community must focus on climate
science -- satellites are crucial for
this AVHRR-MODIS-VIIRS data are the most
important climate science measurements
(land-ocean-atmosphere) Landsat observations are
the next most important land climate science
observations Canopy lidar was the 3rd most
important land climate science observation Avoid
detours in the present fiscal situation that
compromise climate measurements
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What about Why cant the earth science community
get organized like the space science community
for future satellite missions?
In the space science community, every group gets
their turn for missions because there is NO NEED
FOR MEASUREMENTS OVER TIME Climate change is THE
earth science question We all must support
satellite and ground measurements that provide
key climate science information thru time Time
series satellite data are invaluable for climate
science
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Satellite Remote Sensing of Earth
SeaWiFS Ocean Chlorophyll Land NDVI
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5 SeaWiFS land bands
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Sahara Desert
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Sahel Zone
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Sudanian NDVI - EVI
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EVI 2.5ir-red/ir(6red)-7.5(blue)1
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Amazon forest 443 670 nm bands
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Amazon NDVI vs r 670 nm
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Amazon EVI
EVI 2.5ir-red/ir(6red)-7.5(blue)1
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EVI 2.5ir-red/ir(6red)-7.5(blue)1
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NDVI vs. Red Reflectance
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EVI vs. Red Reflectance
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Who invented the NDVI?
or
Charlie Chan?
The Creature from the Black
Lagoon never published!!
Larry, Mo, Curly?