OPTICAL AND RADAR IMAGE PROCESSING FOR VEGETATION EFFECTS MONITORING.

Drought is one of the major natural calamities causing important damages to natural vegetation, agriculture and the society. Therefore, climate changes from recent years set the vegetation monitoring as the highest priority in Romania among the other strategies. In this study, optical data gathered by different sensors were used for extracting the Leaf Area Index (LAI), NDVI and hydric and thermal stress, while from radar data the surface soil moisture was estimate science that retrieving soil moisture with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) measurements depends on soil texture, surface roughness and vegetation cover. Radar and optical data sensor integration provide reliable information about vegetation effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]