Monitoring Vegetation and Land Surface Temperature Dynamics in Similipal Biosphere Reserve, Odisha

Abstract

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) has provided an improved capability for moderate resolution land surface monitoring and for studying surface temperature variations. Surface temperature is a key variable in the surface energy balance. The knowledge of surface temperature is important to a range of issues and themes in earth sciences central to urban climatology, global environmental change, and human-environment interactions. In the study, an attempt has been made to estimate surface temperature over Simlipal Biosphere Reserve. The particular significance of this study is due to the large scale effect of Similipal in the local microclimate of this region. From the study, we found that the north-western part of SBR, there is a greening up tend particularly in the dense forest where NDVI value is supposed to be higher than 0.4. in some part, near to transition and buffer boundary, the open forest (<0.2 NDVI) is increasing over the period. LST mean and LST max curves have more or less same value throughout the year except for the duration DOY161 to DOY257. Except the few occasional deeps which may be data error, the maximum NDVI curves are more or less similar in all the observed periods. The temporal trend of minimal NDVI does not follow any definite pattern and very much irregular in its annual course compared to maximal and mean NDVI. There exists a negative correlation between NDVI and LST with correlation coefficient is below 0.4 in all the observed years.