Relationships between climatic parameters and forest vegetation: application to burned area in Alicante (Spain)

The main aims of this study is to examine the variability of normalized dif ference vegetation index (NDVI) on forest vegetation in Alicante (Spain) be tween 1984 and 1994 and to analyse the influence of climatic parameters in the regeneration of forest areas burned by fires. The zone of study is loca ted between XUTM (m) 730400-760400 and YUTM (m) 4274000-4304000 and is char acterised by a great topographic complexity that leads to diverse microclim atic conditions. In this area, the maximum annual rainfall of the Valencian Community is recorded, reaching 850 mm of average annual rainfall (Belda, 1997). We examined the spatial and temporal analyse of rainfall and soil mo isture over this area. To do this, we analysed the water balances of 25 met eorological stations from the Spanish Meteorological Institute, and we used the Kriging method for their interpolation. On the other hand, to perform multitemporal variation of the amount of vege tation, we have several Landsat TM images from 1984 to 1994 (bands 3 and 4) to calculate the NDVI. The image processing consisted of geometric and rad iometric correction (atmospheric and topographic) to superimpose all the im ages and to make their multitemporal comparison possible. Geographical Info rmation System (GIS) was used to monitor forest vegetation and its relation ship with climatic parameters (rainfall and soil moisture), particularly ID RISI, where we integrated information from remote sensing and ground data c ollection. Finally, it appears that NDVI is useful in estimating the variat ion of amount of vegetation for a long period. In spatial and temporal anal yse, the oscillation of the NDVI was low. In general, the wet area had high er values than the dry area. In the burned area, the regeneration followed an exponential curve which was stronger in wet zones and had high correlati on coefficients. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.