Using Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal
Infrared Sensor imagery of the Yellow River Delta, this study analyzed the relationships between
NDVI and LST (land surface temperature). Six Landsat images comprising two time series were
used to calculate the land surface temperature and correlated vegetation indices. The Yellow River
Delta area has expanded substantially because of the deposited sediment carried from upstream
reaches of the river. Between 1986 and 2015, approximately 35% of the land use area of the
Yellow River Delta has been transformed into salterns and aquaculture ponds. Overall, land use
conversion has occurred primarily from poorly utilized land into highly utilized land. To analyze
the variation of land surface temperature, a mono-window algorithm was applied to retrieve the
regional land surface temperature. The results showed bilinear correlation between land surface
temperature and the vegetation indices (i.e., Normalized Difference Vegetation Index,
Adjusted-Normalized Vegetation Index, Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index, and Modified
Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index). Generally, values of the vegetation indices greater than the
inflection point mean the land surface temperature and the vegetation indices are correlated
negatively, and vice versa. Land surface temperature in coastal areas is affected considerably by
local seawater temperature and weather conditions.
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