Sultan Ibn Sultan, Alqassim Universty, Agricultur, sultan@tec-rs.com
Wadi Ar Rumah watershed system analysis combining both the information in the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) visible/near-infrared bands in terms of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and in the thermal-infrared bands in terms of Land Surface Temperature (LST) is presented. The analysis is based in the LST-NDVI feature space. This permits characterizing the distribution and evolution of the different regions according to their vegetation and watershed systems. The Pathfinder AVHRR Land (PAL) data analysis has been carried out to investigate the changes in the biophysical characteristics of land cover and the water system pattern. The PAL data corresponds to the month of February for the years of 1997, 1998 and 1999. The Arabian Peninsula in general was selected as the area of study due to its high environmental diversity. Wadi Ar Rumah was especially selected because it was flooded by heavy precipitation during end of 1997 to beginning of 1998. Precipitation saturated the ground surface soil and kept the wet condition for a time. This work proved the wadi AR RUMAH as the earth longest watershed drainage system in our plant.
Keywords: Watershed system, desert vegetation, AVHRR, NDVI, LST.