Relationship between herbicide concentration during the 1960s and 1970s and the contemporary MERIS Terrestrial Chlorophyll Index (MTCI) for southern Vietnam

Abstract

Large concentrations of herbicide were sprayed onto the forests of southern Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s. Over 30 years later, many of these contaminated forests have regained full canopy cover, albeit with reduced chlorophyll content. The European Space Agency produces an operational product for the estimation of terrestrial chlorophyll content over large areas of terrain. This product uses data recorded by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) on Envisat and is called the MERIS Terrestrial Chlorophyll Index (MERIS). The relationship between historical levels of herbicide contamination and contemporary MTCI was strong (R = 0.86) and negative, with high levels of herbicide contamination being associated (via low levels of chlorophyll concentration) with low levels of MTCI. This is the first published study to demonstrate a relationship between MTCI and a surrogate for chlorophyll content. The next stage of this research is to build on the strength of this relationship and use contemporary MTCI to estimate historical herbicide levels during the 1960s and 1970s across southern Vietnam.

Keywords:

• MERIS
• Agent Orange
• MTCI
• Vegetation condition

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Alvin L. Young and The National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD, USA for providing the HERBS file through The Alvin L. Young Collection on Agent Orange. Since submission of this paper, the US Government has made this collection inaccessible. The authors are also thankful to ESA for providing the MERIS data through a principal investigatorship to P.J.C.