Correlación espacial de índice de vegetación de diferencia normalizada (NDVI) entre plataformas satelitales y vehículos aéreos no tripulados (UAV), en los agroecosistemas de cuatro cuencas de los altos Andes del macizo del Cajas.

Abstract

This research was conducted in four watersheds in the High Andes of the Cajas Massif in Azuay, Ecuador, a region known for its lagoons, wetlands, and rich biodiversity. The uniqueness of this environment makes it a critical area for vegetation cover analysis. The objective was to compare the Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVI) obtained from satellite imagery and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) on twelve routes within the study area. For this comparison, the bilinear resampling method was applied to adjust the spatial resolution of the images. Subsequently, Shannon entropy was used to evaluate the UAV and Sentinel-2 image data quality. The correlation between NDVI was analyzed using Spearman's method. The results indicate that UAV imagery provides more information on NDVI. A significant and positive correlation was observed using Spearman's method. However, negative correlations were also identified, which are attributed to the temporal variability of the vegetation during image capture. The thesis is organized into four chapters, including an introduction to the problem, a theoretical framework, methodology, presentation of results, and recommendations.