The use of remote sensing techniques in support of hydrological studies became common in recent years, through the application of orbital images that are used the reflectance values of the water, for mapping, delineation of water bodies and moisture monitoring in the internal structure of vegetable biomass. Among the methods and techniques of remote sensing image processing with the hydrological analysis, here the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), object of study in the present work, in

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... order to compare the application of the index through different methods. The present study was developed in the territorial part of the Nilo Coelho Irrigated Perimeter located in the Semiarid Northeastern region and covers the municipalities of Casa Nova-BA, Petrolina-PE and Juazeiro-BA, using TM-Landsat 5 sensor images from 30/07/2006. This comparison of the NDWI provided the best application for each index, as well as evaluate the potentiality of the index according to the applied method.