Dynamics of mountain semi-natural grassland meadows inferred from SPOT-VEGETATION and field spectroradiometer data
Permanent semi-natural grassland meadows (lameiros) are characteristic of the mountain rural landscapes in northeast Portugal and represent the main fodder resource for livestock production. Furthermore, these meadows are recognized for their environmental, historical, cultural
and visual landscape value. A monitoring study based on remote-sensing data was implemented to understand the impacts of management practices on the lameiros vegetation dynamics and to analyse changes in vegetation dynamics over the period 1998–2008 in response to inter-annual
climatic variability. Ten-day SPOT-VEGETATION (VGT) image composites from this period were used to examine the annual temporal profile using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and their relationship with ground-based observation of vegetation growth and reflectance inferred
with a spectroradiometer. Results show that the NDVI profile fits well the characteristic vegetation growth dynamics and associated management practices in the region. For the period from July 2007 to December 2008, the variation in vegetation height explains 46 to 52% of the variation in
NDVI derived respectively from spectroradiometer and VGT data. NDVI referring to dates of specific stages of the vegetation dynamics and management practices in lameiros was tested against climatic variables, for the period 1998–2008. More than 57% of the inter-annual variability
of the average NDVI during the lameiros development period can be explained by the mean temperature, and 53% of the variability on the date of occurrence of maximum vegetation development (MVD) can be explained by the mean temperature during the spring period. These results support
the analysis of lameiros responses to different scenarios of climate and water management and may support the implementation of more efficient farm activities.
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Centro de Engenharia dos Biossistemas, Vairão,4485-661, Portugal 2: Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Centro de Investigação em Ciências Geoespaciais, Vairão, 4485-661, Portugal 3: Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisboa,1349-017, Portugal
Publication date: 20 July 2012
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Subscribe to this Title
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content