Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• sahar sabaghzade ¹
• Mohammad Zare ²
• Mohamad Hosein Mokhtari ³

¹ MSc of Arid Lands Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, Yazd University

² Assistant Professor, Faculty of Natural Resources, Yazd University,

³ Assistant Professor, Faculty of Natural Resources, Yazd University

Abstract

Vegetation is an important component of each global ecosystem. Determining of the biomass of plant is important to assess its impact upon climate, soil erosion, and as well for management of natural resources. The aim of this study was to estimate biomass using vegetation indices based on remote sensing. The Landsat 8 data of May 2013 and field studies coinciding with field imaging in Marac (South Khorasan province) were used. Tamarix plant biomass measured in 30 random plots of 11 vegetation indices including DVI, IPVI, NDVI, PVI, RVI, SAVI, TSAVI, WDVI, and Tasselcap were used to estimate biomass of Tamarix.Then, using cluster analysis, vegetation indices were divided into three groups among which SAVI, RVI , and IPVI were chosen. The results showed that indexes which consider soil factors are more accurate than other measures. In this study, biomass map was prepared using the SAVI index.

Keywords

• Arid lands
• Biomass
• remote sensing
• Landsat 8
• Vegetation index
• Cluster Analysis