Innovative NDVI time-series analysis based on multispectral images for detecting small scale vegetation cover change

A natural CO2 leakage site is studied in order to understand the impact of top soil CO2 contamination on vegetation cover. The site is relatively small and with a very high elevation. The authors are motivated to develop a new algorithm for locating land surface change with vegetation index NDVI. One of the challenges in this study is that it is impossible to develop a vegetation growth model because of large data gaps. There were only 27 Landsat 5 TM images available for time series analysis. Moreover, the selected AOI covered just 4 pixels of MODIS image in computation for NDVI difference. However, the results are very promising in locating these NDVI changed pixels. The clear trend of NDVI change of these pixels on the vegetation cover that suffered CO2 damage has proven this proposed algorithm´s capability in monitoring potential CO2 leakage at CCS site even with a small scale.