A Review of Landsat TM/ETM based Vegetation Indices as Applied to Wetland Ecosystems

A review of vegetation indices as applied to Landsat-TM and ETM+ multispectral data is presented. The review focuses on indices that have been developed to produce biophysical information about vegetation biomass/greenness, moisture and pigments. In addition, a set of biomass/greenness and moisture content indices are tested in a Mediterranean semiarid wetland environment to determine their appropriateness and potential for carrying redundant information. The results indicate that most vegetation indices used for biomass/greenness mapping produce similar information and are statistically well correlated.