A REMOTE-SENSING ANALYSIS OF VEGETATION DAMAGE AROUND METAL SMELTERS IN THE KOLA-PENINSULA, RUSSIA

The huge sulphur dioxide and heavy metal emissions from the nickel and copper smelters in the Kola Peninsula, Russia, have caused severe veg etation damage and destruction in the surrounding areas during the pas t few decades. An attempt was made to detect changes in the state of t he vegetation in the environs of the Monchegorsk smelters using Landsa t MSS images from the years 1978, 1980, 1986, and 1989 as an input for multitemporal image analysis. By comparing Normalized Difference Vege tation Index (NDVI) values from different years, a clear deterioration in the proportion of green vegetation could be distinguished during t he time period observed. Unsupervised classification of the images sho wed the same trend: the vegetation around the smelters has undergone s evere degradation. A large composite image mosaic of the TM channels 6 , 4 and 1 overlaid by a SO2 distribution model showed clearly that sev ere damage area corresponds to an yearly average concentration of 40-6 0 mu g m(-3) of SO2.