Retrieval of EVI from Oceansat 2 Data and Comparison with MODIS Derived EVI

The vegetation index is derived using many remote sensing sensors. Vegetation Index is extensively used and remote sensing has become the primary data source. Number of vegetation indices (VIs) have been developed during the past decades in order to assess the state of vegetation qualitatively and quantitatively. Analysis of vegetation indices has been carried out by many investigators scaling from regional level to global level using the remote sensing data of varying spatial, temporal and radiometric resolutions. There are as many as 14 VIs in use. Globally operational algorithms for generation of NDVI have utilized digital counts, at sensor radiances, ‘normalized’ reflectance (top of the atmosphere), and more recently, partially atmospheric corrected (ozone absorption and molecular scattering) reflectance. Presently NDVI and EVI are standard MODIS data products which are widely used by the scientific community for environmental studies. The OCM sensor in Oceansat 2 is designed for ocean colour studies. The OCM sensor has been used for studying ocean phytoplankton, suspended sediments and aerosol optical depth by many investigators. In addition to its capability of studying the ocean surface, OCM sensor has also the potential to study the land surface features. In a past EVI has been retrieved using OCM sensor of Oceansat 1. However, there is slight change in the band width of Oceansat 2—OCM sensor compared with OCM of Oceansat 1 sensor. In the present paper an attempt has been made to derive EVI using Oceansat 2 OCM sensor and the results have been compared with MODIS data. The enhanced vegetation index (EVI) is calculated using the reflectance values obtained after removing molecular scattering and ozone absorption component from the total radiance detected by the sensor. The band-2, Band-3, band-6 and band-8 corresponding to Blue, Red and Infrared part of the visible spectrum have been used to determine EVI. The result shows that Oceansat 2 derived EVI and MODIS derived EVI are well correlated.