Abstract
In recent years it has been feared that the forests in neighborhood of cities and industrial complex are to be ruined by air polution. To deal with such environmental deterioration, it is necessary to conduct a continuous monitoring of the air pollution effect on the forests, especially for the effect of the pollution level caused by sulfur oxides. Since the state of growth of plants shows the history of the atmospheric environment in a habitat from the past to the present, it is thinkable that the air pollution level can be estimated by the index related to the state of the growth of plants. To know the state of growth of plant, it is effective to put the vegetation index acquired from the satellite remote sensing data to practical use. Authors have measured the quantity of sulfur dioxide adhered on the surface of the leaf of Japanese cedar in the neigborhood of cities and industrial complex and found from the ground truth that the larger the quantity of sulfur dioxide adhered to Japanese cedar is, the smaller the ratio of NIR to R of the leaves becomes. (where, NIR: Near-infrared wavelangth range reflectance, R: Red wavelength range reflectance)
In this study, we, taking account of the results of basic research, carried out the examine as follows; (1) the relationship between the adhered quantity of sulfur dioxide on the leaves Japanese cedar stand and the sulfur dioxide level at the collecting site, (2) the relationship between the former and the value of (NIR/R) acquired from the Landsat TM data concerning the Japanese cedar stand from which the sample leaves were collected, (3) the propose a practical assessment method of the state of pollution due to sulfur oxides on the forests in the neighborhood of cities and industrial complex with the aid of the satellite data.
