0000000001323396
AUTHOR
Fernando Camacho
Data synergy between leaf area index and clumping index Earth Observation products using photon recollision probability theory
International audience; Clumping index (CI) is a measure of foliage aggregation relative to a random distribution of leaves in space. The CI can help with estimating fractions of sunlit and shaded leaves for a given leaf area index (LAI) value. Both the CI and LAI can be obtained from global Earth Observation data from sensors such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS). Here, the synergy between a MODIS-based CI and a MODIS LAI product is examined using the theory of spectral invariants, also referred to as photon recollision probability ('p-theory'), along with raw LAI-2000/2200 Plant Canopy Analyzer data from 75 sites distributed across a range of plant functional types.…
Intercomparison of instruments for measuring leaf area index over rice
Leaf area index (LAI) is a key biophysical parameter used to determine foliage cover and crop growth in environmental studies in order to assess crop yield. LAI estimates can be classified as direct or indirect methods. Direct methods are destructive, time consuming, and difficult to apply over large fields. Indirect methods are non-destructive and cost-effective due to its portability, accuracy and repeatability. In this study, we compare indirect LAI estimates acquired from two classical instruments such as LAI-2000 and digital cameras for hemispherical photography, with LAI estimates acquired with a smart app (PocketLAI) installed on a mobile smartphone. In this work it is shown that LAI…
LAI, FAPAR and FCOVER ground-truth map creation from FASat-C satellite imagery and in-situ measurements in Chimbarongo, Chile, for satellite products validation
[EN] In remote sensing, validation exercises are essential to ensure the quality of the products originated from satellite Earth observations. To assess the measurement uncertainty derived from satellite products, several ground field data from different ecosystems must be available for use. In the same order of importance, it is necessary to define data sampling and up-scaling methodologies to allow a suitable comparison between the ground data and the pixel size of the product. This paper shows the applied methodology used in the FP7 ImagineS project (Implementing Multi-scale Agricultural Indicators Exploiting Sentinels) to validate 10-days global LAI, FAPAR and vegetation cover products …
GEOV1: LAI, FAPAR essential climate variables and FCOVER global time series capitalizing over existing products. Part 2: Validation and intercomparison with reference products
International audience; This paper describes the scientific validation of the first version of global biophysical products (i.e., leaf area index, fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and fraction of vegetation cover), namely GEOV1, developed in the framework of the geoland-2/BioPar core mapping service at 1 km spatial resolution and 10-days temporal frequency. The strategy follows the recommendations of the CEOS/WGCV Land Product Validation for LAI global products validation. Several criteria of performance were evaluated, including continuity, spatial and temporal consistency, dynamic range of retrievals, statistical analysis per biome type, precision and accuracy. The…
Generation of global vegetation products from EUMETSAT AVHRR/METOP satellites
We describe the methodology applied for the retrieval of global LAI, FAPAR and FVC from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the Meteorological-Operational (MetOp) polar orbiting satellites also known as EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). A novel approach has been developed for the joint retrieval of three parameters (LAI, FVC, and FAPAR) instead of training one model per parameter. The method relies on multi-output Gaussian Processes Regression (GPR) trained over PROSAIL EPS simulations. A sensitivity analysis is performed to assess several sources of uncertainties in retrievals and maximize the positive impact of modeling the noise in training simulations. We describe the ma…
A Critical Comparison of Remote Sensing Leaf Area Index Estimates over Rice-Cultivated Areas: From Sentinel-2 and Landsat-7/8 to MODIS, GEOV1 and EUMETSAT Polar System
Leaf area index (LAI) is a key biophysical variable fundamental in natural vegetation and agricultural land monitoring and modelling studies. This paper is aimed at comparing, validating and discussing different LAI satellite products from operational services and customized solution based on innovative Earth Observation (EO) data such as Landsat-7/8 and Sentinel-2A. The comparison was performed to assess overall quality of LAI estimates for rice, as a fundamental input of different scale (regional to local) operational crop monitoring systems such as the ones developed during the "An Earth obseRvation Model based RicE information Service" (ERMES) project. We adopted a multiscale approach f…
Geostatistics for Mapping Leaf Area Index over a Cropland Landscape: Efficiency Sampling Assessment
This paper evaluates the performance of spatial methods to estimate leaf area index (LAI) fields from ground-based measurements at high-spatial resolution over a cropland landscape. Three geostatistical model variants of the kriging technique, the ordinary kriging (OK), the collocated cokriging (CKC) and kriging with an external drift (KED) are used. The study focused on the influence of the spatial sampling protocol, auxiliary information, and spatial resolution in the estimates. The main advantage of these models lies in the possibility of considering the spatial dependence of the data and, in the case of the KED and CKC, the auxiliary information for each location used for prediction pur…
Crop specific algorithms trained over ground measurements provide the best performance for GAI and fAPAR estimates from Landsat-8 observations
Abstract Estimation of Green Area Index (GAI) and fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fAPAR) from decametric satellites was investigated in this study using a large database of ground measurements over croplands. It covers six main crop types including rice, corn, wheat and barley, sunflower, soybean and other types of crops. Ground measurements were completed using either digital hemispherical cameras, LAI-2000 or AccuPAR devices over sites representative of a decametric pixel. Sites were spread over the globe and the data collected at several growth stages concurrently to the acquisition of Landsat-8 images. Several machine learning techniques were investigated to re…
Empirical and physical estimation of Canopy Water Content from CHRIS/PROBA data
20 páginas, 4 tablas, 7 figuras.
Derivation of global vegetation biophysical parameters from EUMETSAT Polar System
Abstract This paper presents the algorithm developed in LSA-SAF (Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis) for the derivation of global vegetation parameters from the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor on board MetOp (Meteorological–Operational) satellites forming the EUMETSAT (European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) Polar System (EPS). The suite of LSA-SAF EPS vegetation products includes the leaf area index (LAI), the fractional vegetation cover (FVC), and the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR). LAI, FAPAR, and FVC characterize the structure and the functioning of vegetation and are key par…
A global Canopy Water Content product from AVHRR/Metop
Abstract Spatially and temporally explicit canopy water content (CWC) data are important for monitoring vegetation status, and constitute essential information for studying ecosystem-climate interactions. Despite many efforts there is currently no operational CWC product available to users. In the context of the Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF), we have developed an algorithm to produce a global dataset of CWC based on data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor on board Meteorological–Operational (MetOp) satellites forming the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). CWC reflects the water conditions at the leaf level and information related …
Multitemporal Monitoring of Plant Area Index in the Valencia Rice District with PocketLAI
Leaf area index (LAI) is a key biophysical parameter used to determine foliage cover and crop growth in environmental studies in order to assess crop yield. Frequently, plant canopy analyzers (LAI-2000) and digital cameras for hemispherical photography (DHP) are used for indirect effective plant area index (PAI(eff)) estimates. Nevertheless, these instruments are expensive and have the disadvantages of low portability and maintenance. Recently, a smartphone app called PocketLAI was presented and tested for acquiring PAI(eff) measurements. It was used during an entire rice season for indirect PAI(eff) estimations and for deriving reference high-resolution PAI(eff) maps. Ground PAI(eff) value…
Prototype for Surface Albedo Retrieval Based on Sentinel-3 OLCI and SLSTR Data in the Framework of Copernicus Climate Change
This work describes the different algorithmic steps used to retrieve the first Surface Albedo (SA) product based on Sentinel-3 (S-3) data in the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The atmospherically corrected Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) reflectances into Top-Of-Canopy (TOC) reflectances are brokered from the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS). The TOC reflectances are used to obtain a BRDF model. Next, the spectral and angular integration steps are implemented, which take the latter coefficients as input to produce spectral and broadband albedo quantities. The preliminary quality assessment of BSA broadband albedo for the total shortwave shows good overall spatiotempo…
Optimal modalities for radiative transfer-neural network estimation of canopy biophysical characteristics: Evaluation over an agricultural area with CHRIS/PROBA observations
International audience; Neural networks trained over radiative transfer simulations constitute the basis of several operational algorithms to estimate canopy biophysical variables from satellite reflectance measurements. However, only little attention was paid to the training process which has a major impact on retrieval performances. This study focused on the several modalities of the training process within neural network estimation of LAI, FCOVER and FAPAR biophysical variables. Performances were evaluated over both actual experimental observations and model simulations. The SAIL and PROSPECT radiative transfer models were used here to simulate the training and the synthetic test dataset…
Combining hectometric and decametric satellite observations to provide near real time decametric FAPAR product
Abstract A wide range of ecological, agricultural, hydrological and meteorological applications at local to regional scales requires decametric biophysical data. However, before the launch of SENTINEL-2A, only few decametric products are produced and most of them remain limited by the small number of available observations, mostly due to a moderate revisit frequency combined with cloud occurrence. Conversely, kilometric and hectometric biophysical products are now widely available with almost complete and continuous coverage, but the associated spatial resolution limits the application over heterogeneous landscapes. The objective of this study is to combine unfrequent decametric spatial res…
Intercomparison and quality assessment of MERIS, MODIS and SEVIRI FAPAR products over the Iberian Peninsula
Abstract The fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR) is a key variable in productivity and carbon cycle models. The variety of available FAPAR satellite products from different space agencies leads to the necessity of assessing the existing differences between them before using into models. Discrepancies of four FAPAR products derived from MODIS, SEVIRI and MERIS (TOAVEG and MGVI algorithms), covering the Iberian Peninsula from July 2006 to June 2007 are here analyzed. The assessment is based on an intercomparison involving the spatial and temporal consistency between products and a statistical analysis across land cover types. In general, significant differences ar…
On Line Validation Exercise (OLIVE): A Web Based Service for the Validation of Medium Resolution Land Products. Application to FAPAR Products
International audience; The OLIVE (On Line Interactive Validation Exercise) platform is dedicated to the validation of global biophysical products such as LAI (Leaf Area Index) and FAPAR (Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation). It was developed under the framework of the CEOS (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites) Land Product Validation (LPV) sub-group. OLIVE has three main objectives: (i) to provide a consistent and centralized information on the definition of the biophysical variables, as well as a description of the main available products and their performances (ii) to provide transparency and traceability by an online validation procedure compliant with the CEO…
Validation of daily global solar irradiation images from MSG over Spain
Abstract Daily irradiation images over Spain – area that embraces a highly heterogeneous landscape, climatic conditions and relief – are calculated from the down-welling surface short-wave radiation flux (DSSF) product derived from the MSG SEVIRI images. Their analysis and validation is carried out using two different station networks along the year 2008. The first network covers the peninsular Spain and Balearic islands. A denser one, covering the Catalonian territory and including many stations located in rugged terrain, is found useful to assess the elevation correction to be applied to the images. The statistics from the validation using the first network shows a relative mean bias of a…
Prototyping of Land-SAF leaf area index algorithm with VEGETATION and MODIS data over Europe
Abstract The Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (Land-SAF) aims to provide land surface variables for the meteorological and environmental science communities from EUMETSAT satellites. This study assesses the performance of a simplified (i.e. random distribution of vegetation is assumed) version of the Land-SAF algorithm for the estimation of Leaf Area Index (LAI) when prototyped with VEGETATION (processed in CYCLOPES program) and MODIS reflectances. The prototype estimates of LAI are evaluated both by comparison with validated CYCLOPES and MODIS LAI products derived from the same sensors and directly through comparison with ground-based estimates. Emphasis is given on …
Climate Data Records of Vegetation Variables from Geostationary SEVIRI/MSG Data: Products, Algorithms and Applications
The scientific community requires long-term data records with well-characterized uncertainty and suitable for modeling terrestrial ecosystems and energy cycles at regional and global scales. This paper presents the methodology currently developed in EUMETSAT within its Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA SAF) to generate biophysical variables from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) on board MSG 1-4 (Meteosat 8-11) geostationary satellites. Using this methodology, the LSA SAF generates and disseminates at a time a suite of vegetation products, such as the leaf area index (LAI), the fraction of the photosynthetically active radiation absorbed …
Estimación de la fAPAR sobre la Península Ibérica a partir de la inversión del modelo de transferencia radiativa 4SAIL2
El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en la estimación de la fAPAR en la Península Ibérica a partir de datos MODIS. En primer lugar, se ha simulado un conjunto de datos de reflectividades y de fAPAR a partir de los modelos de transferencia radiativa de hoja (PROSPECT) y de cubiertas heterogéneas (4SAIL2). En segundo lugar, se ha entrenado un conjunto de redes neuronales artificiales (RNAs) para obtener mediante inversión la relación entre la fAPAR y las reflectividades simuladas y así calcular, por último, la fAPAR de la Península Ibérica a partir de imágenes de reflectividad de MODIS. Además, se ha analizado la influencia de la configuración de observación e iluminación, nadir y oblicua. La…
Data for: Crop specific algorithms trained over ground measurements provide the best performance for GAI and fAPAR estimates from Landsat-8 observations
This dataset encompasses a large number (> 700) of in-situ observations over elemantary sampling units (about 20m2) of LAI (effective and actual), fAPAR and fraction of vegetation cover (fCover) collected over a network of agricultural sites during the ImagineS project (http://fp7-imagines.eu/) in the period 2013-2016. The ground dataset was collected with digital hemispherical photography (DHP), LAI2200, and AccuPAR devices following well stablished protocols in agreement with CEOS LPV good practices. The ground data is complemented with concomitant Landsat-8/OLI observations, the sun zenith angle at the acquisition and the NDVI. This results in a unique database to calibrate and valida…