Comparison of broad-band and narrow-band red and near-infrared vegetation indices

An experiment has been conducted in which narrow-band field reflectance spectra were acquired of a rooted pinyon pine canopy with five different gravel backgrounds. Leaf area was successively removed as the measurements were repeated. From these reflectance spectra, narrow-band and broad-band (AVHRR, TM, MSS) red and near-infrared (NIR) vegetation index values were calculated. The performance of the vegetation indices was evaluated based on their capability to accurately estimate leaf area index (LAI) and percent green cover. Background effects were found for each of the tested vegetation indices. However, the background effects are most pronounced in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and ratio vegetation index (RVI). Background effects can be reduced using either the perpendicular vegetation index (PVI) or soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) formulations. The narrow-band versions of these vegetation indices had only slightly better accuracy than their broad-band counterparts. The background effects were minimized using derivative based vegetation indices, which measure the amplitude of the chlorophyll red-edge using continuous narrow-band spectra from 626 nm to 795 nm.