Assessment of water content using remote sensing Normalized Difference Water Index: Preliminary study

Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) showed a relationship with annual rainfall and soil moisture. A very significant relationship found in polynomial relationship between annual rainfall with NDVI and MODIS NDVI (r² = 0.830 and 0.983). Higher rainfall was associated with higher NDVI value for both, surface reflectance imagery and MODIS NDVI. This study found no significant relationship in in situ measurement between soil moisture content and mean NDWI. This study suggests the insignificant was associated with insufficient in-situ data. Whereas annual rainfall and mean NDWI for long term period was r² = 0.349 which indicate moderate relationship. Further study is require to investigate the NDWI value for long term period and in situ measurements in order to provide insufficient in situ analysis data.