Monitoring heterogeneous urban and rural area using Normalised Difference Infrared Index – a case study from SE Poland

ABSTRACT The results of a study of NDII applicability for monitoring of a heterogeneous rural and urban area during a growing season (April–November) were shown. We evaluated the spatial and quantitative distributions, and temporal trends of NDII derived from Landsat 8 imagery, NDII = (NIR–SWIR)/(NIR+SWIR) or NDII = (Band5–Band6)/(Band5+Band6), over a typical medium-sized European city with its surroundings. The temporal changes of NDII were also correlated with sunshine duration, temperature, and precipitation. Vegetation was the component of land cover that was changing to the highest degree during the growing season. The most dynamic temporal alterations of NDII were recorded within the arable land. In forest areas and grassland NDII was relatively stable through the summer. The NDII values were stable also in the built-up area in view of practically constant state of human-made covers in the studied period. NDII can support the monitoring of land cover/land use in the urban and rural areas, provided that the images of fully developed plant cover are used. It was stated that NDII correlated with weather conditions. The relationships between NDII and precipitation, temperature, and sunshine duration could facilitate risk assessment and planning of agronomic practices with regard to the weather