Land surface albedo describes the fraction of incoming solar energy reflected at a given point and time, and hence determines the surface temperature and evapotranspiration. It is strongly dependent on the solar zenith angle and the three-dimensional structure of vegetation canopy (e.g., Yang et al. 2001; Schaaf et al. 2002). The land surface albedo in regional and global models can be specifie...

T h e potentials and limits of estimating canopy parameters are investigated using only a reflectance spectrum in the optical domain, and the PROSPECT + SAIL model. Simulations are performed on A VIRIS (Airborne Visible~Infrared Imaging Spectrometer) equivalent spectra, corrected for the atmospheric effects. It is established that this model is numerically invertible. The sensitivity analysis o...

The angular dependence of satellite-measured canopy reflectance has been shown to contain information on the structure of vegetated surfaces. The aim of the research was to explore the angular variability of spectral indices and to compare the suitability of angular indices and traditional vegetation indices for retrieval of forest structural attributes using Chris/PROBA data. With spruce the l...

In the present study, an attempt was made to produce a precise 3D image of a tomato canopy using a portable high-resolution scanning lidar. The tomato canopy was scanned by the lidar from three positions surrounding it. Through the scanning, the point cloud data of the canopy were obtained and they were co-registered. Then, points corresponding to leaves were extracted and converted into polygo...

Many current vegetation–atmosphere models require structural information describing the canopy in order to calculate rates of mass and energy exchange. One of the most important pieces of information is the variation with height in leaf area density, ρ (m2 leaf area per m3 canopy volume), but it is notoriously difficult to measure this in forest canopies. Consequently, very few data on ρ exist ...

Factors that contribute to the accuracy of estimating woody canopy's leaf area density (LAD) using 3D portable lidar imaging were investigated. The 3D point cloud data for a Japanese zelkova canopy [Zelkova serrata (Thunberg) Makino] were collected using a portable scanning lidar from several points established on the ground and at 10 m above the ground. The LAD profiles were computed using vox...

This work examines the application of a geometric-optical canopy reflectance model to provide measures of woody shrub abundance in desert grasslands at the landscape scale. The approach is through inversion of the non-linear simple geometric model (SGM) against 631 nm multi-angle reflectance data from the Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) flown on the European Space Agency's ...

Several methods for extracting the chlorophyll sensitive red-edge position (REP) from hyperspectral data are reported in literature. This study is a continuation of a recent paper published as ‘A new technique for extracting the red edge position from hyperspectral data: the linear extrapolation method’. The method was validated experimentally for estimation of foliar nitrogen concentrations of...

The FluorMODgui Graphic User Interface (GUI) software package developed within the frame of the FluorMOD project Development of a Vegetation Fluorescence Canopy Model is presented in this manuscript. The FluorMOD project was launched in 2002 by the European Space Agency (ESA) to advance the science of vegetation fluorescence simulation through the development and integration of leaf and canopy ...

This work examines the application of a geometric-optical canopy reflectance model to provide measures of woody shrub abundance in desert grasslands at the landscape scale. The approach is through inversion of the non-linear simple geometric model (SGM) against 631 nm multi-angle reflectance data from the Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) flown on the European Space Agency's ...