The Importance of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Use of the ArcGIS to create NDVI Maps

Abstract

This paper studies the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI); the creation of the NDVI maps, how these maps are work, and how to create them using ArcMap. These maps sort the vegetation into low and high up to the NDVI values (±0.1). It measures greenness, vegetation health, predicts agricultural productivity, and map desertification; it is an important index in agricultural organizations and environmental studies. It is a standardized index assisting in illustrating the relative biomass, this back to the strong association between its rates and the vegetation density. To calculate the NDVI there is a formula depends on two multi-spectrum’s bands; red light, and near-infrared (NIR). As a result of the contrasts between them, the human see the leaves in green which displays less reflection in the NIR than in red light. Leaves turn into yellow in the NIR and reflect less because of casualty plants, water-stressed, or death.