Spatial patterns of the canopy stress during 2005 drought in Amazonia

Abstract

In the last decades, the detection of drought occurrences and assessment of its severity using satellite data are becoming popular in disaster, desertification, crop production, phenology, land cover change and climate change studies. To detect the drought effects on different vegetation types, many methodologies have been developed, mostly relying on the use of vegetation indices. This communication reports the first attempt to assess the capability of MODIS NDVI, Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) from 2000 to 2006 time-series to detect the 2005 drought in Amazonia. To reach this objective, monthly composites of the MOD13A2 product were generated from period. Then, monthly anomalies were calculated, considering anomalous values when lower than -1 standard deviation (sd) or higher than 1 sd. Rainfall data provided by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was also acquired for the same time-series with the objective of supporting the understanding of vegetation response with the precipitation. Water deficit data calculated based on the TRMM data were also used to guide the sampling scheme. A land cover map for South America updated with natural land cover changes detected by the Near Real Time Deforestation Detection Project (DETER) was used as a mask to avoid false anomalies in the Brazilian Amazon. In general, NDWI and EVI showed to be sensitive and consistent for the temporal series used. NDVI presented a high variability and though a difficult interpretation. Critical months in the NDWI and EVI series coincided with the months with higher water stress calculated based on the TRMM data. EVI also showed to detect changes in the canopy structure. These preliminary results suggest that this is a strong methodology to be used in the spatial analysis of the extent of the drought effects in the vegetation. Literfall data will be incorporate in this research for validation purposes.