ANIMAL CARRYING CAPACITY ESTIMATION IN RANGELANDS USING A NORMALIZED SLOPES VEGETATION INDEX.

Animal carrying capacity estimation is a prerequisite for sustainable livestock management, so that the development of theoretical and innovator experimental frameworks to perform this task in operational terms and at low cost is needed. The use of remote sensing offers an alternative which must be deeply explored to know its limitations. Under this perspective, in this study the use of field information of reflectances is analyzed in one or two visits to the same site by which the theoretical framework associated with the spectral patterns of vegetation isolines in spectral space of the bands of red and near infrared was expanded; this allowed developing a normalized slopes vegetation index with a linear relationship with the leaf area index and green aboveground biomass of vegetation. This relationship was validated using data from different experiments, obtaining suitable results. The methodology developed under a perspective of animal carrying capacity estimation in grasslands and scrublands of the state of Coahuila was evaluated using information generated in the sampling campaign of 2009-2010, which was conducted at 24 sites of 1.5 x 1.5 km. The results showed that, despite some experimental problems, it is possible to make reliable estimations of carrying capacity using remote sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]