scholarly journals Inferring Grassland Drought Stress with Unsupervised Learning from Airborne Hyperspectral VNIR Imagery

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 1885
Author(s):  
Floris Hermanns ◽  
Felix Pohl ◽  
Corinna Rebmann ◽  
Gundula Schulz ◽  
Ulrike Werban ◽  
...  

The 2018–2019 Central European drought had a grave impact on natural and managed ecosystems, affecting their health and productivity. We examined patterns in hyperspectral VNIR imagery using an unsupervised learning approach to improve ecosystem monitoring and the understanding of grassland drought responses. The main objectives of this study were (1) to evaluate the application of simplex volume maximisation (SiVM), an unsupervised learning method, for the detection of grassland drought stress in high-dimensional remote sensing data at the ecosystem scale and (2) to analyse the contributions of different spectral plant and soil traits to the computed stress signal. The drought status of the research site was assessed with a non-parametric standardised precipitation–evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and soil moisture measurements. We used airborne HySpex VNIR-1800 data from spring 2018 and 2019 to compare vegetation condition at the onset of the drought with the state after one year. SiVM, an interpretable matrix factorisation technique, was used to derive typical extreme spectra (archetypes) from the hyperspectral data. The classification of archetypes allowed for the inference of qualitative drought stress levels. The results were evaluated using a set of geophysical measurements and vegetation indices as proxy variables for drought-inhibited vegetation growth. The successful application of SiVM for grassland stress detection at the ecosystem canopy scale was verified in a correlation analysis. The predictor importance was assessed with boosted beta regression. In the resulting interannual stress model, carotenoid-related variables had among the highest coefficient values. The significance of the photochemical reflectance index that uses 512 nm as reference wavelength (PRI512) demonstrates the value of combining imaging spectrometry and unsupervised learning for the monitoring of vegetation stress. It also shows the potential of archetypical reflectance spectra to be used for the remote estimation of photosynthetic efficiency. More conclusive results could be achieved by using vegetation measurements instead of proxy variables for evaluation. It must also be investigated how the method can be generalised across ecosystems.

2020 ◽  
Vol 171 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luzia Götz ◽  
Achilleas Psomas ◽  
Harald Bugmann

Early detection of bark beetle infestations by remote sensing: what is feasible today? Infestation by the Norway spruce (Picea abies) bark beetle (Ips typographus) in uniform forest stands of the high montane and subalpine stage is a major challenge for management. It is impossible to identify in time all susceptible or already infested spruces in the often steep terrain solely by terrestrial observations and to prevent the proliferation of the beetle. A time-saving, cost-effective and effective method for finding these spruces is necessary and remote sensing techniques appear promising. Therefore, we investigated the potential of hyperspectral remote sensing data for the early detection of stressed or infested spruces using a case study in the experimental forest of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in Sedrun. The approach that we developed is based on a combination of field surveys, hyperspectral data, vegetation indices calculated from these and their classification into the three classes “dead”, “stressed” and “healthy” using Random Forests, a machine-learning approach. We demonstrate that stressed spruces can be identified with this approach, but it is not yet ready for operational use. In particular, a slope-specific calibration of the method is necessary, which makes practical application impossible.


Author(s):  
A. K. Vishwakarma ◽  
A. K. Agnihotri ◽  
R. Rai ◽  
B. K. Shrivastva ◽  
S. Mishra

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> This study aims to evaluate the effect of underground coal mining subsidence on the growth of native vegetation. For this study, an underground coal mine of South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), India was selected. Changes in vegetation indices were analyzed using three remote sensing data of the previous five years. Three period’s Landsat 8 OLI resolution image data were used to calculate Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the years 2014, 2016 and 2018 in QGIS environment. The study showed that the local grassland and forest were affected by the mining exploitation and subsidence but those effects were not significant to have an adverse impact on the same. The short-term mining was having an impact on the vegetation growth but the effects gradually disappeared with the gradual stabilization of the subsided land and in absence of human interference, vegetation recovered well. In long-term, subsidence was not having a major impact on the vegetation growth. Thus, coal resources exploitation and subsidence of the said mine of SECL did not bring out an adverse impact on a wide range of forest and grassland ecosystems, and these ecosystems could carry the partial destruction and ultimately stabilized ecosystems by self-repair.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 895 (1) ◽  
pp. 012013
Author(s):  
S Gantumur ◽  
G V Kharitonova ◽  
A S Stepanov ◽  
K N Dubrovin

Abstract Although field surveus represent an essential method for determining oil contamination of soils and soil cover, the use of remote sensing techniques has become one of the main trends over recent years due to their economic and temporary advantages. The fundamental basis of this approach is the assessment of changes in vegetation cover by vegetation indices as indicator. In this study, the problems of assessment of the soil cover contamination during oil production are considered. It is aimed to select and evaluate objective criteria for soil cover contamination with oil in the Tamsag–Bulag field (Eastern Gobi, Mongolia). For this purpose, during the period of maximum vegetation growth, various vegetation indices were investigated at test sites (4 km2) from 2015 to 2019. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) were used with Sentinel-2 and MODIS of the Terra satellite images at 30 and 250 m resolution, respectively. The monitoring of the land quality with satellite images via NDVI and SAVI allows us to assess the area of oil contamination of the soils and soil cover. The significant increase in the values of the NDVI and SAVI at a distance of more than 4 km from the center of the Tamsag-Bulag oil field is shown. The obtained results indicate the possibility of assessment and monitoring the state of the oil-ed territories of the Eastern Gobi by NDVI и SAVI using satellite images.


2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (11) ◽  
pp. 878 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Römer ◽  
Mirwaes Wahabzada ◽  
Agim Ballvora ◽  
Francisco Pinto ◽  
Micol Rossini ◽  
...  

Early water stress recognition is of great relevance in precision plant breeding and production. Hyperspectral imaging sensors can be a valuable tool for early stress detection with high spatio-temporal resolution. They gather large, high dimensional data cubes posing a significant challenge to data analysis. Classical supervised learning algorithms often fail in applied plant sciences due to their need of labelled datasets, which are difficult to obtain. Therefore, new approaches for unsupervised learning of relevant patterns are needed. We apply for the first time a recent matrix factorisation technique, simplex volume maximisation (SiVM), to hyperspectral data. It is an unsupervised classification approach, optimised for fast computation of massive datasets. It allows calculation of how similar each spectrum is to observed typical spectra. This provides the means to express how likely it is that one plant is suffering from stress. The method was tested for drought stress, applied to potted barley plants in a controlled rain-out shelter experiment and to agricultural corn plots subjected to a two factorial field setup altering water and nutrient availability. Both experiments were conducted on the canopy level. SiVM was significantly better than using a combination of established vegetation indices. In the corn plots, SiVM clearly separated the different treatments, even though the effects on leaf and canopy traits were subtle.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 536
Author(s):  
Eve Laroche-Pinel ◽  
Mohanad Albughdadi ◽  
Sylvie Duthoit ◽  
Véronique Chéret ◽  
Jacques Rousseau ◽  
...  

The main challenge encountered by Mediterranean winegrowers is water management. Indeed, with climate change, drought events are becoming more intense each year, dragging the yield down. Moreover, the quality of the vineyards is affected and the level of alcohol increases. Remote sensing data are a potential solution to measure water status in vineyards. However, important questions are still open such as which spectral, spatial, and temporal scales are adapted to achieve the latter. This study aims at using hyperspectral measurements to investigate the spectral scale adapted to measure their water status. The final objective is to find out whether it would be possible to monitor the vine water status with the spectral bands available in multispectral satellites such as Sentinel-2. Four Mediterranean vine plots with three grape varieties and different water status management systems are considered for the analysis. Results show the main significant domains related to vine water status (Short Wave Infrared, Near Infrared, and Red-Edge) and the best vegetation indices that combine these domains. These results give some promising perspectives to monitor vine water status.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2036
Author(s):  
Yang Yi ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Mingchang Shi ◽  
Zekun Meng ◽  
Chen Zhang

The temporal and spatial characteristics of vegetation in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (MRYR) were analyzed from 1999 to 2015 by trend analysis, co-integration analysis, partial correlation analysis, and spatial analysis using MODIS-NDVI time series remote sensing data. The average NDVI of the MRYR increased from 0.72 to 0.80, and nearly two-thirds of the vegetation showed a significant trend of improvement. At the inter-annual scale, the relationship between NDVI and meteorological factors was not significant in most areas. At the inter-monthly scale, NDVI was almost significantly correlated with precipitation, relative humidity, and sunshine hours, and the effect of precipitation and sunshine hours on NDVI showed a pronounced lag. When the altitude was less than 2500 m, NDVI increased with elevation. NDVI increased gradually as the slope increased and decreased gradually as the slope aspect changed from north to south. NDVI decreased as the population density and per capita GDP increased and was significantly positively correlated with afforestation policy. These findings provide new insights into the effects of climate change and human activities on vegetation growth.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Pauliina Salmi ◽  
Matti A. Eskelinen ◽  
Matti T. Leppänen ◽  
Ilkka Pölönen

Spectral cameras are traditionally used in remote sensing of microalgae, but increasingly also in laboratory-scale applications, to study and monitor algae biomass in cultures. Practical and cost-efficient protocols for collecting and analyzing hyperspectral data are currently needed. The purpose of this study was to test a commercial, easy-to-use hyperspectral camera to monitor the growth of different algae strains in liquid samples. Indices calculated from wavebands from transmission imaging were compared against algae abundance and wet biomass obtained from an electronic cell counter, chlorophyll a concentration, and chlorophyll fluorescence. A ratio of selected wavebands containing near-infrared and red turned out to be a powerful index because it was simple to calculate and interpret, yet it yielded strong correlations to abundances strain-specifically (0.85 < r < 0.96, p < 0.001). When all the indices formulated as A/B, A/(A + B) or (A − B)/(A + B), where A and B were wavebands of the spectral camera, were scrutinized, good correlations were found amongst them for biomass of each strain (0.66 < r < 0.98, p < 0.001). Comparison of near-infrared/red index to chlorophyll a concentration demonstrated that small-celled strains had higher chlorophyll absorbance compared to strains with larger cells. The comparison of spectral imaging to chlorophyll fluorescence was done for one strain of green algae and yielded strong correlations (near-infrared/red, r = 0.97, p < 0.001). Consequently, we described a simple imaging setup and information extraction based on vegetation indices that could be used to monitor algae cultures.


2016 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grazia Caradonna ◽  
Antonio Novelli ◽  
Eufemia Tarantino ◽  
Raffaela Cefalo ◽  
Umberto Fratino

Abstract Mediterranean regions have experienced significant soil degradation over the past decades. In this context, careful land observation using satellite data is crucial for understanding the long-term usage patterns of natural resources and facilitating their sustainable management to monitor and evaluate the potential degradation. Given the environmental and political interest on this problem, there is urgent need for a centralized repository and mechanism to share geospatial data, information and maps of land change. Geospatial data collecting is one of the most important task for many users because there are significant barriers in accessing and using data. This limit could be overcome by implementing a WebGIS through a combination of existing free and open source software for geographic information systems (FOSS4G). In this paper we preliminary discuss methods for collecting raster data in a geodatabase by processing open multi-temporal and multi-scale satellite data aimed at retrieving indicators for land degradation phenomenon (i.e. land cover/land use analysis, vegetation indices, trend analysis, etc.). Then we describe a methodology for designing a WebGIS framework in order to disseminate information through maps for territory monitoring. Basic WebGIS functions were extended with the help of POSTGIS database and OpenLayers libraries. Geoserver was customized to set up and enhance the website functions developing various advanced queries using PostgreSQL and innovative tools to carry out efficiently multi-layer overlay analysis. The end-product is a simple system that provides the opportunity not only to consult interactively but also download processed remote sensing data.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Wohlfahrt ◽  
Albin Hammerle ◽  
Barbara Rainer ◽  
Florian Haas

&lt;p&gt;Ongoing changes in climate (both in the means and the extremes) are increasingly challenging grapevine production in the province of South Tyrol (Italy). Here we ask the question whether sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) observed remotely from space can detect early warning signs of stress in grapevine and thus help guide mitigation measures.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Chlorophyll fluorescence refers to light absorbed by chlorophyll molecules that is re-emitted in the red to far-red wavelength region. Previous research at leaf and canopy scale indicated that SIF correlates with the plant photosynthetic uptake of carbon dioxide as it competes for the same energy pool.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To address this question, we use time series of two down-scaled SIF products (GOME-2 and OCO-2, 2007/14-2018) as well as the original OCO-2 data (2014-2019). As a benchmark, we use several vegetation indices related to canopy greenness, as well as a novel near-infrared radiation-based vegetation index (2000-2019). Meteorological data fields are used to explore possible weather-related causes for observed deviations in remote sensing data. Regional DOC grapevine census data (2000-2019) are used as a reference for the analyses.&lt;/p&gt;


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