Differentiation of Six Grassland/Forage Types in Three Canadian Ecoregions Based on Spectral Characteristics

Differentiation of grassland/forage types and accurate estimates their location extent are important for understanding ecological processes applying appropriate management practices. We aiming to reveal the different spectral characteristics six land covers in three ecoregions located Canadian Prairies, based on field data satellite images. Three indices representing productivity (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)), moisture content Moisture (NDMI)), plant photosynthetic activity (Plant Senescence Reflectance (PSRI)) were used comparison means, coefficient variation (CV), analysis variance (ANOVA). The results indicated that grassland show distinguishable Moist-Mixed Mixed Ecoregions, while it was not possible differentiate classes Fescue Ecoregion. To further investigate within-sites between-sites heterogeneity, we calculated CV a 3 × window placed them comparative triangles demonstrate potential separability. Results offered greater class separability Ecoregion