Abstract
This study was aimed at monitoring vegetation recovery in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, where a large area of forest was burned by fire events. Since it is difficult to estimate the recovery situation by using only Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) which is commonly used for vegetation analysis, we developed a new index called Normalized Difference Forest Index (NDFI) formed by the combination of Bands 3, 4 and 5 of LANDSAT TM/ETM data in this study. We also investigated the vegetation recovery situation from the fire in 1997 by analyzing the NDVI product by SPOT VEGETATION data time series. Burnt areas were extracted using NDFI which proved to be effective for discriminating forest from non-forest areas in tropical region. Effectiveness of SPOT-NDVI Change Rate (SNCR) was also shown for detecting burnt areas because SNCR corresponded with the damage grade by the past fires of this area.
