Characterization of Temporal Variations of SAVI Spatial Patterns

Remotely sensed data are widely used to gain information about biophysical parameters characterizing the Earth surface. Among the others, the Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) is commonly used to monitor the distribution and the health of the green cover. The vegetation usually shows a certain level of spatial correlation, that is expected to be present also in the related SAVI maps. Moreover, also the temporal evolution of vegetation is not a random phenomena, but its growth follows the natural phenological seasonal cycle, if human intervention or unexpected natural phenomena such as landslides, fires or floods are excluded. Accordingly, the SAVI information derived from remotely sensed data should also contain a corresponding pixel-by-pixel temporal correlation. In this work a preliminary characterization of the spatial and temporal correlation of a multi-temporal series of SAVI maps derived by Landsat-TM imagery is presented and a characterization of the temporal information stability is evaluated.