MODIS Applications in Environmental Change Researches in the Southeast-Asian Region

要旨

This paper gives brief description of the MODIS data acquisition, processing and archiving system at the Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo and our experience in using MODIS data for the last 4 years (2000-2004). The potential as well as difficulty in utilizing MODIS data for scientific applications are then, discussed through 3 environmental change researches in the Southeast-Asian region: vegetation mapping with MODIS NDVI time series; urban heat island mapping with MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST); and agricultural drought monitoring with the MODIS-based Temperature-Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI). These preliminary results demonstrated that high-temporal and high-spectral resolution MODIS data is very useful and effective in monitoring environmental/ ecosystems changes at a regional scale in the tropical Southeast Asia.