Vegetation canopy covers evaluation of arid areas using IRS images

The evaluation of vegetation covers using conventional methods is difficult over arid areas due to several reasons such as lack of the suitable roads to these regions. Moreover, this task is time-consuming. For these reasons, remote sensing has been considered as an economic alternative for conventional field work. In this study, the feasibility of using IRS images in vegetation cover evaluation of rangelands has been investigated. For this purpose, vegetation types of a part of arid rangelands in Semnan province, Iran, was classified using topographic maps. Then required information related to vegetation canopy cover of different types was collected along with two linear 50 meter transactions. At the end, the statistical relationship was assessed between different indices extracted from the multispectral bands and the collected field data was assessed. The results demonstrate the moderate capability of these images to produce vegetation cover map over arid rangelands.