Mapping litter decomposition by remote-detected indicators

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L. Sabetta
N. Zaccarelli
G. Mancinelli
S. Mandrone
R. Salvatori
M. L. Costantini
G. Zurlini
L. Rossi

Abstract

Leaf litter decomposition is a key process for the functioning of natural ecosystems. An important limiting factor
for this process is detritus availability, which we have estimated by remote sensed indices of canopy green
biomass (NDVI). Here, we describe the use of multivariate geostatistical analysis to couple in situ measures with
hyper-spectral and multi-spectral remote-sensed data for producing maps of litter decomposition. A direct relationship
between the decomposition rates in four different CORINE habitats and NDVI, calculated at different
scales from Landsat ETM+ multi-spectral data and MIVIS hyper-spectral data was found. Variogram analysis
was used to evaluate the spatial properties of each single variable and their common interaction. Co-variogram
and co-kriging analysis of the two variables turned out to be an effective approach for decomposition mapping
from remote-sensed spatial explicit data.

Article Details

How to Cite
Sabetta, L., Zaccarelli, N., Mancinelli, G., Mandrone, S., Salvatori, R., Costantini, M. L., Zurlini, G. and Rossi, L. (2006) “Mapping litter decomposition by remote-detected indicators”, Annals of Geophysics, 49(1). doi: 10.4401/ag-3172.
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