ABSTRACT

Soil surfaces in arid and semi-arid lands often lack photoautotrophic life but are covered by communities of soil surface covering organisms able to tolerate dehydration and thus adapted to aridity. One of the important objectives of multispectral remote sensing instruments is the detection of the optical characteristics of the Earth’s surface using high spectral resolution bands. In this study ASTER imagery and reflected radiation in VNIR bands were used to investigate Biological Soil Crusts (BSCs) in the field. By applying IARR (Internal Average Relative Reflectance), FCC (False Color Composite), MNF (Minimum Noise Fraction Transform), MEM (Mathematical Evaluation Method) techniques, BSCs are successfully detected in the Chadormalu desert area of central Iran.This study clearly shows the capability of ASTER data (VNIR bands) to detect BSC or cyanobacteria soil crusts. The MEM method is suggested as an accurate tool for full scale studies.

KEYWORDS

Multispectral imagery, ASTER, Biological soil crust, Cyanobacteria, Chadormalu, Iran.