h11v5+--+southeast+U.S.

This page will contain information related to the land area contained in MODIS tile h11v5, the tile covering the southeast United States.

I am looking specifically at South Carolina and the observed decrease in vegetation observed there. I believe that the decreased vegetation is due to a combination of multiple factors:


 * Poor farming practices, such as overfarming, leading to a lack of nutrients in the soil.
 * A multi-year drought bringing lower water tables and decreased rainfall.
 * An increase in the population of urban areas as the state goes through a period of economic downfall.



Below are three images of the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) for my tile, taken in spring, summer, and fall 2010, respectively.

Spring 2010 (April 15)

Summer 2010 (July 20)

Autumn 2010 (October 16)

In these images, darker green indicates higher values of the NDVI (closer to 1), brown indicates values near 0, and white spaces are negative values. Note that in the autumn 2010 image, there is a swath across the left-hand side of the image that is blue. The data in the initial satellite image was missing, and so it is in my analyzed image as well.

I chose to use the NDVI as it's one of the easier indices to calculate, and it works well for the southeastern US. That region is a mixture of cropland and deciduous forest, and so vegetation changes pretty drastically there.

One of the most noticeable differences between the three images, though it doesn't relate to my topic, is in the northwestern corner. This is the Appalachian Mountains, and the change in vegetation is quite noticeable there. A general increase in vegetation is also noted in the summer image, though it's most drastic near the coast and in the mountains.

I'm investigating the I-85 corridor between Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, GA. The images below are the difference in surface temperature between 2000 and 2010. Red colors indicate warmer temperatures and blue colors indicate cooler temperatures, and darker colors indicate a greater magnitude. The darkest colors indicate a change of 10 **°**C.

Changes in summer surface heating between 2000 and 2010.

Changes in winter surface heating between 2000 and 2010.

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Below is a link to my table of available images. I chose the first week of July in 2008 and 2009 to work with.

[|landsat_table.xls]