Uso de dados multitemporais de índices de vegetação para a identificação de culturas agrícolas no Triângulo Mineiro/Alto Paranaíba /MG

Abstract

The remote sensing and the time series analysis of the vegetation index are found to be potential in the identification of different agricultural areas, seeking to map and monitor their phenological cycles. Lately, the use of time series of data from composed products related to vegetation, such as the MOD13Q1 product from MODIS sensor, and the VGT-S10 product from SPOT VGT sensor, which provide vegetation indices as composed products of 16 and 10 days, respectively, free of atmospheric interferences, is highlighted. The time series allow the assessment of vegetation pattern, by examining the seasonality and tendency of crops phenology cycles. Thus, we assessed here the use of time series of vegetation indices in the generation of spectro-temporal profiles, and the subsequent derivation of parameters about phenological and/or agricultural cycles for generating culture masks, seeking to map and identify areas used for culturing sugarcane, soy, coffee and maize in Triângulo Mineiro, Alto Paranaíba, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The study was performed for the years from 2009 to 2012, and time series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and Enhanced Vegetation Index obtained from the MOD13Q1 product, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Water Index and Dry Matter Productivity obtained from the VGT-S10 product, were used. According to results, the time series were found to be useful in monitoring the phenological cycle of crops. This made possible the identification of areas reserved for planting each crop, based on the culturing masks generation method, and use of threshold of maximum and minimum cut-off values, denoting that the MOD13Q1 product was, in general, the best in the identification of growing areas in Triângulo Mineiro.