| Abstract: | Relationships between Landsat reflectance indexes that extract the individual component contributions of vegetation and the soil background and the composition of a semiarid grassland-shrub environment are examined. The results indicate that two reflectance indexes, the Transformed Vegetation Index (TVI) and the ratio of Landsat MSS6/MSS5, exhibit the highest correlation with vegetation density. The ratio of MSS6/MSS4, the ratio of MSS5/MSS4, and the MSS6 soil background reflectance component (Rgg6) emerge as the best indexes to discriminate between semiarid landscape units. The relationships between reflectance and land cover composition suggest that Landsat reflectance may be useful to monitor temporal and spatial changes in the condition of semiarid vegetation. |
