MULTI-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF NORTHEAST VEGETATION BY MEANS OF MODIS-EVI DATA

The Brazilian Northeast (NEB) region presents different vegetation types that are important to maintain this ecosystem. With remote sensing techniques it is possible to analyze variations in vegetation community and alterations in vegetation phenology. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the temporal behavior of the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) of different vegetation types in the NEB over the period ranging from February/2000 to July/2006. The study area was a 1,800 km long transect at latitude -6 degrees 41'24 '' enclosed at the NEB region. A map of Brazil (1: 5,000,000 scale, from Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE) was used to characterize the vegetation types. A total of 144 cloud-free EVI images with spatial resolution of 250 m were acquired from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The results showed that: i) EVI data were sensible to the vegetation types; ii) amazon vegetation presented lesser variation in the multi-temporal EVI, however with greater values; iii) Caatinga vegetation presented greater EVI values variation.