Dry grassland sites are amongst the most species rich habitats of Central Europe. In Switzerland, they are home to a large number of plant and animal species that are classified as endangered or threatened. A key component for designing optimal and effective management schemes ensuring the sustainability of these ecosystems, is knowledge of their biomass production. In this study we explored th...

The Airborne Hyperspectral Scanner (AHS) and the Hyperion satellite hyperspectral sensors were evaluated for their ability to predict topsoil organic carbon (C) in burned mountain areas of northwestern Spain slightly covered by heather vegetation. Predictive models that estimated total organic C (TOC) and oxidizable organic C (OC) content were calibrated using two datasets: a ground observation...

Coverage and frequency of remotely sensed forest structural information would benefit from single orbital platforms designed to collect sufficient data. We evaluated forest structural information content using single-date Hyperion hyperspectral imagery collected over full-canopy oak-hickory forests in the Ozark National Forest, Arkansas, USA. Hyperion spectral derivatives were used to develop m...

Karst rocky desertification is a special kind of land desertification developed under violent human impacts on the vulnerable ecogeo-environment in karst ecosystem. The process of karst rocky desertification results in simultaneous and complex variations of many interrelated soil, rock and vegetation biophysical parameters, rendering it difficult to develop simple and robust remote sensing mapp...

Data simulation is widely used in remote sensing to produce imagery for a new sensor in the design stage, for scale issues of some special applications, or for testing of novel algorithms. Hyperspectral data could provide more abundant information than traditional multispectral data and thus greatly extend the range of remote sensing applications. Unfortunately, hyperspectral data are much more...

A number of indicators and signals that lend themselves to monitoring by remote-sensing satellites provide a warning of land degradation. These include loss of vegetative cover, wind and water erosion, soil salinization, deterioration of the soil structure, drier soil, increased reflectance, higher land surface temperatures, and changes in land cover type. But because soil and vegetation change...

.................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................... iii List of Tables ................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures ...................

On August 18, 2002, the Hyperion hyperspectral imager onboard the EO-1 platform recorded data over an intensively used agricultural area in north western Switzerland, the Limpach Valley. The sensor’s 198 spectral bands between 400 and 2500 nm (Level 1B1) and a spatial resolution of 30 m bear the potential for both a detailed land use classification and an accurate estimation of biophysical and ...