scholarly journals Evaluation of Vegetation Biophysical Variables Time Series Derived from Synthetic Sentinel-2 Images

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 1547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Najib Djamai ◽  
Detang Zhong ◽  
Richard Fernandes ◽  
Fuqun Zhou

Time series of vegetation biophysical variables (leaf area index (LAI), fraction canopy cover (FCOVER), fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR), canopy chlorophyll content (CCC), and canopy water content (CWC)) were estimated from interpolated Sentinel-2 (S2-LIKE) surface reflectance images, for an agricultural region located in central Canada, using the Simplified Level 2 Product Prototype Processor (SL2P). S2-LIKE surface reflectance data were generated by blending clear-sky Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imager (S2-MSI) images with daily BRDF-adjusted Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer images using the Prediction Smooth Reflectance Fusion Model (PSFRM), and validated using thirteen independent S2-MSI images (RMSE ≤ 6%). The uncertainty of S2-LIKE surface reflectance data increases with the time delay between the prediction date and the closest S2-MSI image used for training PSFRM. Vegetation biophysical variables from S2-LIKE products are validated qualitatively and quantitatively by comparison to the corresponding vegetation biophysical variables from S2-MSI products (RMSE = 0.55 for LAI, ~10% for FCOVER and FAPAR, and 0.13 g/m2 for CCC and 0.16 kg/m2 for CWC). Uncertainties of vegetation biophysical variables derived from S2-LIKE products are almost linearly related to the uncertainty of the input reflectance data. When compared to the in situ measurements collected during the Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2016 field campaign, uncertainties of LAI (0.83) and FCOVER (13.73%) estimates from S2-LIKE products were slightly larger than uncertainties of LAI (0.57) and FCOVER (11.80%) estimates from S2-MSI products. However, equal uncertainties (0.32 kg/m2) were obtained for CWC estimates using SL2P with either S2-LIKE or S2-MSI input data.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongye Cao ◽  
Ling Han ◽  
Liangzhi Li

Abstract Remote sensing dynamic monitoring methods often benefit from a dense time series of observations. To enhance these time series, it is sometimes necessary to integrate data from multiple satellite systems. For more than 40 years, Landsat has provided the longest time record of space-based land surface observations, and the successful launch of the Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor in 2013 continues this tradition. However, the 16-day observation period of Landsat images has challenged the ability to measure subtle and transient changes like never before. The European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Sentinel-2A satellite in 2015. The satellite carries a Multispectral Instrument (MSI) sensor that provides a 10-20m spatial resolution data source providing an opportunity to complement the Landsat data record. The collection of Sentinel-2A MSI, Landsat-7 ETM+, and Landsat-8 OLI data provide multispectral global coverage from 10m to 30m with further reduced data revisit intervals. There are many differences between sensor data that need to be taken into account to use these data together reliably. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential of integrating surface reflectance data from Landsat-7, Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 archived in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform. To test and quantify the differences between these sensors, hundreds of thousands of surface reflectance data from sensor pairs were collected over China. In this study, some differences in the surface reflectance of the sensor pairs were identified, based upon which a cross-sensor conversion model was proposed, i.e., a suitable adjustment equation was fitted using an ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression method to convert the Sentinel-2 reflectance values closer to the Landsat-7 or Landsat-8 values. The regression results show that the Sentinel MSI data are spectrally comparable to both types of Landsat image data, just as the Landsat sensors are comparable to each other. The root mean square error (RMSE) values between MSI and Landsat spectral values before coordinating the sensors ranged from 0.014 to 0.037, and the RMSE values between OLI and ETM + ranged from 0.019 to 0.039. After coordination, RMSE values between MSI and Landsat spectral values ranged from 0.011 to 0.026, and RMSD values between OLI and ETM + ranged from 0.013 to 0.034. The fitted adjustment equations were also compared to the HLS (Harmonized Landsat-8 Sentinel-2) global fitted equations (Sentinel-2 to Landsat-8) published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and were found to be significantly different, increasing the likelihood that such adjustments would need to be fitted on a regional basis. This study believes that despite the differences in these datasets, it appears feasible to integrate these datasets by applying a linear regression correction between the bands.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 3478
Author(s):  
Ofer Beeri ◽  
Yishai Netzer ◽  
Sarel Munitz ◽  
Danielle Ferman Mintz ◽  
Ran Pelta ◽  
...  

Daily or weekly irrigation monitoring conducted per sub-field or management zone is an important factor in vine irrigation decision-making. The objective is to determine the crop coefficient (Kc) and the leaf area index (LAI). Since the 1990s, optic satellite imagery has been utilized for this purpose, yet cloud-cover, as well as the desire to increase the temporal resolution, raise the need to integrate more imagery sources. The Sentinel-1 (a C-band synthetic aperture radar—SAR) can solve both issues, but its accuracy for LAI and Kc mapping needs to be determined. The goals of this study were as follows: (1) to test different methods for integrating SAR and optic sensors for increasing temporal resolution and creating seamless time-series of LAI and Kc estimations; and (2) to evaluate the ability of Sentinel-1 to estimate LAI and Kc in comparison to Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8. LAI values were collected at two vineyards, over three (north plot) and four (south plot) growing seasons. These values were converted to Kc, and both parameters were tested against optic and SAR indices. The results present the two Sentinel-1 indices that achieved the best accuracy in estimating the crop parameters and the best method for fusing the optic and the SAR data. Utilizing these achievements, the accuracy of the Kc and LAI estimations from Sentinel-1 were slightly better than the Sentinel-2′s and the Landsat-8′s accuracy. The integration of all three sensors into one seamless time-series not only increases the temporal resolution but also improves the overall accuracy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 3209
Author(s):  
Yunan Luo ◽  
Kaiyu Guan ◽  
Jian Peng ◽  
Sibo Wang ◽  
Yizhi Huang

Remote sensing datasets with both high spatial and high temporal resolution are critical for monitoring and modeling the dynamics of land surfaces. However, no current satellite sensor could simultaneously achieve both high spatial resolution and high revisiting frequency. Therefore, the integration of different sources of satellite data to produce a fusion product has become a popular solution to address this challenge. Many methods have been proposed to generate synthetic images with rich spatial details and high temporal frequency by combining two types of satellite datasets—usually frequent coarse-resolution images (e.g., MODIS) and sparse fine-resolution images (e.g., Landsat). In this paper, we introduce STAIR 2.0, a new fusion method that extends the previous STAIR fusion framework, to fuse three types of satellite datasets, including MODIS, Landsat, and Sentinel-2. In STAIR 2.0, input images are first processed to impute missing-value pixels that are due to clouds or sensor mechanical issues using a gap-filling algorithm. The multiple refined time series are then integrated stepwisely, from coarse- to fine- and high-resolution, ultimately providing a synthetic daily, high-resolution surface reflectance observations. We applied STAIR 2.0 to generate a 10-m, daily, cloud-/gap-free time series that covers the 2017 growing season of Saunders County, Nebraska. Moreover, the framework is generic and can be extended to integrate more types of satellite data sources, further improving the quality of the fusion product.


2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (9) ◽  
pp. 5301-5318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiqiang Xiao ◽  
Shunlin Liang ◽  
Jindi Wang ◽  
Yang Xiang ◽  
Xiang Zhao ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 3121
Author(s):  
Roya Mourad ◽  
Hadi Jaafar ◽  
Martha Anderson ◽  
Feng Gao

Leaf area index (LAI) is an essential indicator of crop development and growth. For many agricultural applications, satellite-based LAI estimates at the farm-level often require near-daily imagery at medium to high spatial resolution. The combination of data from different ongoing satellite missions, Sentinel 2 (ESA) and Landsat 8 (NASA), provides this opportunity. In this study, we evaluated the leaf area index generated from three methods, namely, existing vegetation index (VI) relationships applied to Harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 (HLS) surface reflectance produced by NASA, the SNAP biophysical model, and the THEIA L2A surface reflectance products from Sentinel-2. The intercomparison was conducted over the agricultural scheme in Bekaa (Lebanon) using a large set of in-field LAIs and other biophysical measurements collected in a wide variety of canopy structures during the 2018 and 2019 growing seasons. The major studied crops include herbs (e.g., cannabis: Cannabis sativa, mint: Mentha, and others), potato (Solanum tuberosum), and vegetables (e.g., bean: Phaseolus vulgaris, cabbage: Brassica oleracea, carrot: Daucus carota subsp. sativus, and others). Additionally, crop-specific height and above-ground biomass relationships with LAIs were investigated. Results show that of the empirical VI relationships tested, the EVI2-based HLS models statistically performed the best, specifically, the LAI models originally developed for wheat (RMSE:1.27), maize (RMSE:1.34), and row crops (RMSE:1.38). LAI derived through European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) biophysical processor underestimated LAI and provided less accurate estimates (RMSE of 1.72). Additionally, the S2 SeLI LAI algorithm (from SNAP biophysical processor) produced an acceptable accuracy level compared to HLS-EVI2 models (RMSE of 1.38) but with significant underestimation at high LAI values. Our findings show that the LAI-VI relationship, in general, is crop-specific with both linear and non-linear regression forms. Among the examined indices, EVI2 outperformed other vegetation indices when all crops were combined, and therefore it can be identified as an index that is best suited for a unified algorithm for crops in semi-arid irrigated regions with heterogeneous landscapes. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the observed height-LAI relationship is crop-specific and essentially linear with an R2 value of 0.82 for potato, 0.79 for wheat, and 0.50 for both cannabis and tobacco. The ability of the linear regression to estimate the fresh and dry above-ground biomass of potato from both observed height and LAI was reasonable, yielding R2: ~0.60.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 2517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaan Jin ◽  
Weixing Xu ◽  
Ainong Li ◽  
Xinyao Xie ◽  
Zhengjian Zhang ◽  
...  

As a key parameter that represents the structural characteristics and biophysical changes of crop canopy, the leaf area index (LAI) plays a significant role in monitoring crop growth and mapping yield. A considerable amount of farmland is dispersed with strong spatial heterogeneity. The existing time series satellite LAI products fail to capture spatial distributions and growth changes of crops due to coarse spatial resolutions and spatio-temporal discontinuities. Therefore, it becomes crucial for fine resolution LAI mapping in time series over crop areas. A two-stage data assimilation scheme was developed for dense time series LAI mapping in this study. A LAI dynamic model was first constructed using multi-year MODIS LAI data. This model coupled with the PROSAIL radiative transfer model, and MOD09A1 reflectance data were used to retrieve temporal LAI profiles at the 500 m resolution with the assistance of the very fast simulated annealing (VFSA) algorithm. Then, the LAI dynamics at the 500 m scale were incorporated as prior information into the Landsat 8 OLI reflectance data for time series LAI mapping at the 30 m resolution. Finally, the spatio-temporal continuities and retrieval accuracies of assimilated LAI values were assessed at the 500 m and 30 m resolutions respectively, using the MODIS LAI product, fine resolution LAI reference map and field measurements. The results indicated that the assimilated the LAI estimations at the 500 m scale effectively eliminated the spatio-temporal discontinuities of the MODIS LAI product and displayed reasonable temporal profiles and spatial integrity of LAI. Moreover, the 30 m resolution LAI retrievals showed more abundant spatial details and reasonable temporal profiles than the counterparts at the 500 m scale. The determination coefficient R2 between the estimated and field LAI values was 0.76 with a root mean square error (RMSE) value of 0.71 at the 30 m scale. The developed method not only improves the spatio-temporal continuities of the LAI at the 500 m scale, but also obtains 30 m resolution LAI maps with fine spatial and temporal consistencies, which can be expected to meet the needs of analysis on crop dynamic changes and yield mapping in fragmented and highly heterogeneous areas.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kozlova ◽  
I. Piestova ◽  
L. Patrusheva ◽  
M. Lubsky ◽  
A. Nikulina ◽  
...  

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