Zribi Mehrez auteur aut IRD Anguela T.P. auteur aut IRD Duchemin Benoît auteur aut IRD Lili Z. auteur aut IRD Wagner W. auteur aut IRD Hasenauer S. auteur aut IRD Chehbouni Abdelghani auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access The present paper proposes an empirical approach for the modeling of vegetation development, using moisture measurements only. The study is based simply on the use of two databases: one containing soil moisture products derived from ERS scatterometer data over the period 1991-2006 and the other containing normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI) derived from advanced very high resolution radiometer over the period 1991-2000. The study is applied over the Kairouan plain, the central semiarid region of Tunisia (North Africa). Soil moisture products were first validated on the basis of comparisons with Global Soil Wetness Project, Phase 2 Data, outputs and rainfall events. The soil moisture distribution during the rainy period between October and May is described and is found to be correlated with the vegetation dynamics estimated using the NDVI products. Finally, a semiempirical model is proposed, based on satellite moisture and NDVI products, which allows the NDVI value to be estimated for a period of 1 month during the rainy season as a function of the moisture profile estimations obtained during the previous months. This approach could prove very useful and provide a simple tool for the modeling of vegetation dynamics during rainy seasons in semiarid regions. specialized 072 082 126 46 W06508 2010 0043-1397 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010049609 10.1029/2009wr008196 0043-1397 [F B010049609] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010049609 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2010/07-2/010049609.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2010-08-03 2017-08-23 fdi:010049609 fre