Multi-satellite data merge to combine NOAA AVHRR efficiency with Landsat-6 MSS spatial resolution to study vegetation dynamics Original Research Article

Spectral range and good replication provided by NOAA AVHRR data make possible to study evolution of vegetation cover and temperature in time. However, the spatial resolution even of 1000 m does not allow accurate location of the changes. The new developed NOAA NDVI image provides better apparent spatial resolution by the following procedure: • - resample the NOAA image to 100 m pixel size; • - georeference both NOAA and MSS (Landsat-6) to common UTM coordinates; • - extract the brightness component from MSS (using the first principal component); • - merge NOAA NDVI and MSS brightness images. The resulting image features the color of NOAA NDVI and topographic details of MSS intensity. This work offers relevant techniques to extract information from satellite imagery to apply to plant dynamics investigation.