Variance based fusion of VCI and TCI for efficient classification of agriculture drought using MODIS data

Abstract

Overall health condition of the vegetation is obtained by combining satellite data derived moisture and thermal stresses present in vegetation condition index (VCI) and thermal condition index (TCI), respectively and improves the accuracy of drought classification. Although vegetation health index fuses the information present in VCI and TCI, the relative contribution of each index depends on prior knowledge of the study area. Therefore, the random weighing method is used to obtain optimal weights of VCI and TCI based on variances of individual indices. The obtained fusion results of a normal and drought year demonstrate that the random weighing fusion achieves better estimation of agriculture drought without requiring apriori information and the obtained drought classification results are in line with the available ground truth precipitation records. In addition, the correlation analysis of the obtained optimal weights and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index exhibited a strong correlation with a Pearson’s correlation coefficient of above 0.8. The study also showed that the relative contribution of VCI is prevalent in normal conditions while TCI in dry to extreme dry conditions.

Keywords:

• VCI
• TCI
• variance based fusion
• agriculture drought

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank IFCAM, India, for their support to carry out the present research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).