Discrimination and Biophysical Characterization of Cerrado Physiognomies with Eo-1 Hyperspectral Hyperion

The Brazilian savanna, locally known as "cerrado", is the most intensely stressed biome with both naturaland human-induced pressures. In this study, we aimed to improve discrimination and characterization of the Brazilian cerrado physiognomies using hyperspectral Hyperion imagery, the first space-borne imaging spectrometer onboard the NASA's Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) platform. A Hyperion image was acquired over the Brasilia National Park (BNP) on July 20, 2001. Various optical measures which took a full advantage of hyperspectral remote sensing were employed and applied to the atmospherically-corrected Hyperion data. These included the 1st-order derivative-based green vegetation index (1st-DGVI), ligno-cellulose absorption index, spectral albedo, and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) spectral unmixing. All these optical measures were correlated well with field-estimates of landscape component cover fractions. Especially, the SWIR spectral unmixing results simultaneously biophysically-characterized and discriminated the cerrado physiognomies. These preliminary analyses showed a great potential of hyperspectral remote sensing in characterizing/discriminating the land covers in the Brazilian cerrado.