Monitoring of post-fire reforestation based on vegetation indices of optical and radio bands

Abstract

A novel technique of afforestation monitoring with radar vegetation index (RVI) by ALOS-1,2 PALSAR-1,2 data and NDVI by Landsat-5/8 images is proposed. Google Earth Engine cloud platform was used for calculation of annual RVI and average values NDVI for winter (with snow cover) time of 2007-2020 years. The temporal dynamics of the afforestation site is proposed to be evaluated on the NDVI-RVI plane relative to the control areas of coniferous and mixed forests, as well as a treeless area. It is shown that these sites form a movable triangular zone, within which changes in vegetation indices characterize an increase in the projective cover of forest, the growth of aboveground biomass and the replacement/restoration of the prevailing species.