The Correlation between the Radial Growth of Coniferous Trees and the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index

Abstract

This work is dedicated to analysing of the nature of the relationship between the radial growth of trees and remote sensing data. The calculations performed showed that there are certain connections between the satellite data and the values of the first differences in the widths of tree rings, but the strength of these correlations depends on the uniformity of the plantation trees’ radial growth processes. The less synchronous in time are the series of the first differences in the widths of the tree rings (FD WTR), the weaker are the connections between the remote sensing data and the radial increment. Another factor influencing the nature of the relationship between the satellite data and the radial growth is damage to trees. Thus, weak or lacking links between satellite and field data can still be observed and the reason for this is the heterogeneity in growth processes periods of different trees in the stand.