Recurrence Plots of Geolocated Time Series from Satellite Maps of NOAA STAR Vegetation Health Index

Abstract

Several information services, such as the NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research, produces and distributes maps elaborated from satellite images, which display data about vegetation indices. Using the timeseries concerning some specific geographical positions, which we can obtain from the available maps, several analyses are possible. Here we propose the use of recurrence plots. We will show examples based on the data corresponding to six small areas, geolocated in Italy, of the NOAA STAR Vegetation Health Index (VHI). It is an index used for monitoring and forecasting the status of vegetation. The recurrence plots we obtained could be helpful for discriminating different situations.