Monitoring Vegetation Phenology Using MODIS in Northern Plateau Region, North Korea

Many researches have shown that NDVI provides a potential methods to derive meaningful metrics that describe ecosystem functions. In this paper we investigated the use of the MODIS NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) to monitor vegetation phenology dynamics of Northern plateau region, North Korea, during last 9-years (2000-2008). The findings of this paper can be summarized as follows. First, the length of growing season ranged from a low of 128 days in 2003 to a high of 176 days in 2000 and 2005. On the average of the last 9 years, the highest NDVI of 0.86 was marked on 28 July. Greenup onset occurs at the start of May, while the senescence begins between late September and October. Second, these annual vegetation cycles were compared with Seorak and Jiri Mountain regions of South Korea which have similar vegetation condition. Greenup onsets in South Korea were observed earlier than those of North Korea and the average time lag between the South and North Korea in Greenup was about 16 days which is a time-resolution of remotely sensed data. Sub-alpine conifers of such areas may be severely affected by the large of phenological characteristics due to the global warming trend.