Monitoring surface moisture and vegetation status by NOAA and GMS over North China Plain Original Research Article

North China Plain(NCP) is the main granary in China, however, NCP is confronted with water shortage problem that may lead to the fall of the crop production. Thus monitoring NCP from space is very important to know how hydrologic environment affects the crop production. NCP has been monitored by using NOAA/AVHRR for vegetation conditions. As a result, it is clarified that surface hydrological conditions clearly affect the crop production rate revealed by NDVI. Then the surface wetness is estimated by NOAA/AVHRR and GMS/S-VISSR. The slope parameter in the scattergram between vegetation index and surface temperature is examined from NOAA/AVHRR data. The difference in brightness temperatures between 8:00AM and 10:00AM(LT) is also investigated from GMS data. Both of these are considered to be the index of surface moisture condition. The distributions of surface wetness obtained from both methods agree mutually with each other. The results will be used for water management such as proper irrigation practice.