scholarly journals Monitoring seasonal and diurnal changes in photosynthetic pigments with automated PRI and NDVI sensors

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 2947-2978 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Gamon ◽  
O. Kovalchuk ◽  
C. Y. S. Wong ◽  
A. Harris ◽  
S. R. Garrity

Abstract. The vegetation indices normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and photochemical reflectance index (PRI) provide indicators of pigmentation and photosynthetic activity that can be used to model photosynthesis from remote sensing with the light-use efficiency model. To help develop and validate this approach, reliable proximal NDVI and PRI sensors have been needed. We tested new NDVI and PRI sensors, "SRS" sensors recently developed by Decagon Devices, during spring activation of photosynthetic activity in evergreen and deciduous stands. We also evaluated two methods of sensor cross-calibration, one that considered sky conditions (cloud cover) at midday only, and the other that also considered diurnal sun angle effects. Cross-calibration clearly affected sensor agreement with independent measurements, with the best method dependent upon the study aim and time frame (seasonal vs. diurnal). The seasonal patterns of NDVI and PRI differed for evergreen and deciduous species, demonstrating the complementary nature of these two indices. Over the spring season, PRI was most strongly influenced by changing chlorophyll : carotenoid pool sizes, while over the diurnal time scale PRI was most affected by the xanthophyll cycle epoxidation state. This finding demonstrates that the SRS PRI sensors can resolve different processes affecting PRI over different time scales. The advent of small, inexpensive, automated PRI and NDVI sensors offers new ways to explore environmental and physiological constraints on photosynthesis, and may be particularly well-suited for use at flux tower sites. Wider application of automated sensors could lead to improved integration of flux and remote sensing approaches to studying photosynthetic carbon uptake, and could help define the concept of contrasting vegetation optical types.

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 4149-4159 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Gamon ◽  
O. Kovalchuck ◽  
C. Y. S. Wong ◽  
A. Harris ◽  
S. R. Garrity

Abstract. The vegetation indices normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and photochemical reflectance index (PRI) provide indicators of pigmentation and photosynthetic activity that can be used to model photosynthesis from remote sensing with the light-use-efficiency model. To help develop and validate this approach, reliable proximal NDVI and PRI sensors have been needed. We tested new NDVI and PRI sensors, "spectral reflectance sensors" (SRS sensors; recently developed by Decagon Devices, during spring activation of photosynthetic activity in evergreen and deciduous stands. We also evaluated two methods of sensor cross-calibration – one that considered sky conditions (cloud cover) at midday only, and another that also considered diurnal sun angle effects. Cross-calibration clearly affected sensor agreement with independent measurements, with the best method dependent upon the study aim and time frame (seasonal vs. diurnal). The seasonal patterns of NDVI and PRI differed for evergreen and deciduous species, demonstrating the complementary nature of these two indices. Over the spring season, PRI was most strongly influenced by changing chlorophyll : carotenoid pool sizes, while over the diurnal timescale, PRI was most affected by the xanthophyll cycle epoxidation state. This finding demonstrates that the SRS PRI sensors can resolve different processes affecting PRI over different timescales. The advent of small, inexpensive, automated PRI and NDVI sensors offers new ways to explore environmental and physiological constraints on photosynthesis, and may be particularly well suited for use at flux tower sites. Wider application of automated sensors could lead to improved integration of flux and remote sensing approaches for studying photosynthetic carbon uptake, and could help define the concept of contrasting vegetation optical types.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suman Moparthy ◽  
Dominique Carrer ◽  
Xavier Ceamanos

The ability of spatial remote sensing in the visible domain to properly detect the slow transitions in the Earth’s vegetation is often a subject of debate. The reason behind this is that the satellite products often used to calculate vegetation indices such as surface albedo or reflectance, are not always correctly decontaminated from atmospheric effects. In view of the observed decline in vegetation over the Congo during the last decade, this study investigates how effectively satellite-derived variables can contribute to the answering of this question. In this study, we use two satellite-derived surface albedo products, three satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) products, two model-derived AOD products, and synthetic observations from radiative transfer simulations. The study discusses the important discrepancies (of up to 70%) found between these satellite surface albedo products in the visible domain over this region. We conclude therefore that the analysis of trends in vegetation properties based on satellite observations in the visible domain such as NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index), calculated from reflectance or albedo variables, is still quite questionable over tropical forest regions such as the Congo. Moreover, this study demonstrates that there is a significant increase (of up to 14%) in total aerosols within the last decade over the Congo. We note that if these changes in aerosol loads are not correctly taken into account in the retrieval of surface albedo, a greenness change of the surface properties (decrease of visible albedo) of around 8% could be artificially detected. Finally, the study also shows that neglecting strong aerosol emissions due to volcano eruptions could lead to an artificial increase of greenness over the Congo of more than 25% in the year of the eruptions and up to 16% during the 2–3 years that follow.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 6279-6307 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Boegh ◽  
R. Houborg ◽  
J. Bienkowski ◽  
C. F. Braban ◽  
T. Dalgaard ◽  
...  

Abstract. Leaf nitrogen and leaf surface area influence the exchange of gases between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and play a significant role in the global cycles of carbon, nitrogen and water. The purpose of this study is to use field-based and satellite remote-sensing-based methods to assess leaf nitrogen pools in five diverse European agricultural landscapes located in Denmark, Scotland (United Kingdom), Poland, the Netherlands and Italy. REGFLEC (REGularized canopy reFLECtance) is an advanced image-based inverse canopy radiative transfer modelling system which has shown proficiency for regional mapping of leaf area index (LAI) and leaf chlorophyll (CHLl) using remote sensing data. In this study, high spatial resolution (10–20 m) remote sensing images acquired from the multispectral sensors aboard the SPOT (Satellite For Observation of Earth) satellites were used to assess the capability of REGFLEC for mapping spatial variations in LAI, CHLland the relation to leaf nitrogen (Nl) data in five diverse European agricultural landscapes. REGFLEC is based on physical laws and includes an automatic model parameterization scheme which makes the tool independent of field data for model calibration. In this study, REGFLEC performance was evaluated using LAI measurements and non-destructive measurements (using a SPAD meter) of leaf-scale CHLl and Nl concentrations in 93 fields representing crop- and grasslands of the five landscapes. Furthermore, empirical relationships between field measurements (LAI, CHLl and Nl and five spectral vegetation indices (the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, the Simple Ratio, the Enhanced Vegetation Index-2, the Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, and the green chlorophyll index) were used to assess field data coherence and to serve as a comparison basis for assessing REGFLEC model performance. The field measurements showed strong vertical CHLl gradient profiles in 26% of fields which affected REGFLEC performance as well as the relationships between spectral vegetation indices (SVIs) and field measurements. When the range of surface types increased, the REGFLEC results were in better agreement with field data than the empirical SVI regression models. Selecting only homogeneous canopies with uniform CHLl distributions as reference data for evaluation, REGFLEC was able to explain 69% of LAI observations (rmse = 0.76), 46% of measured canopy chlorophyll contents (rmse = 719 mg m−2) and 51% of measured canopy nitrogen contents (rmse = 2.7 g m−2). Better results were obtained for individual landscapes, except for Italy, where REGFLEC performed poorly due to a lack of dense vegetation canopies at the time of satellite recording. Presence of vegetation is needed to parameterize the REGFLEC model. Combining REGFLEC- and SVI-based model results to minimize errors for a "snap-shot" assessment of total leaf nitrogen pools in the five landscapes, results varied from 0.6 to 4.0 t km−2. Differences in leaf nitrogen pools between landscapes are attributed to seasonal variations, extents of agricultural area, species variations, and spatial variations in nutrient availability. In order to facilitate a substantial assessment of variations in Nl pools and their relation to landscape based nitrogen and carbon cycling processes, time series of satellite data are needed. The upcoming Sentinel-2 satellite mission will provide new multiple narrowband data opportunities at high spatio-temporal resolution which are expected to further improve remote sensing capabilities for mapping LAI, CHLl and Nl.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaus Obojes ◽  
Jennifer Klemm ◽  
Ruth Sonnenschein ◽  
Francesco Giammarchi ◽  
Giustino Tonon ◽  
...  

<p>To prevent further erosion of pastures along the south slopes of the Vinschgau/Val Venosta (South Tyrol/Italy) about 900 ha of non-native black pine (Pinus nigra) have been afforested there between 1900 and the 1960s. This drought-tolerant Mediterranean species was supposed to be able to cope with the dry climate at degraded soils in the inner-alpine dry valley. Nevertheless, black pine in the Vinschgau has been affected by reoccurring tree vitality decline and diebacks in the last 20 years linked to repeated droughts and heat waves. Observing growth trends via tree ring analysis is usually restricted to single stands. On the other hand, remote sensing data to track tree vitality was not available in sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to be applied to complex mountain terrain until recently. This has changed with the launch of the Sentinel-2 A and B satellites in 2015 and 2017 with a spatial resolution of 10 to 20 m and a revisiting period of 5 days. To analyse the accordance of remote sensing-based vegetation indices to tree-ring based growth data, we compared twelve sites across the Vinschgau/Val Venosta with a differing degree of vitality loss in 2017 for a four-year period from 2015 to 2018. In general, less vital sites were located at lower elevation and on steeper slopes. Radial tree growth was positively correlated to spring precipitation and strongly decreased during earlier hot and dry years such as 1995 and 2003. We found high and statistically significant correlations between site-average basal area increment as well as tree ring width indices and multiple vegetation indices (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI, Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index GNDVI, Normalized Difference Infrared Index NDII, Moisture Stress Index MSI) especially for the dry 2017 growing season and the 2018 recovery year, which had large gradients in tree vitality between sites. Overall, these results show that remote sensing-based vegetation indices can be used to scale up stand level growth data also in complex mountain terrain.</p>


Author(s):  
Foteini ANGELOPOULOU ◽  
Evangelos ANASTASIOU ◽  
Spyros FOUNTAS ◽  
Dimitrios BILALIS

A field experiment was conducted in Southern Greece to assess Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Red-Edge Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDRE) in estimating Camelina’s crop growth and yield parameters under different tillage systems (conventional and minimum tillage) and organic fertilization types (compost, vermicompost and untreated control). A proximal canopy sensor was used to measure the aforementioned Spectral Vegetation Indices (SVIs) at different days after sowing (DAS). Camelina presented the highest values of NDVI and NDRE under compost fertilization (0.63 and 0.22 accordingly) and minimum tillage system (0.50 and 0.18 accordingly). Additionally, the highest correlations between the measured crop parameters and NDVI, NDRE were achieved at leaf development to early flowering stage. Moreover, NDRE presented the highest correlation with seed yield (R2=0.60, p<0.05) and thus it is suggested for estimating Camelina’s productivity instead of NDVI. Finally, further research is needed for adopting the use of remote sensing technologies on predicting Camelina’s crop growth and yield.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 3558
Author(s):  
Lifeng Xie ◽  
Weicheng Wu ◽  
Xiaolan Huang ◽  
Penghui Ou ◽  
Ziyu Lin ◽  
...  

Rare earth elements (REEs) are widely used in various industries. The open-pit mining and chemical extraction of REEs in the weathered crust in southern Jiangxi, China, since the 1970s have provoked severe damages to the environment. After 2010, different restorations have been implemented by various enterprises, which seem to have a spatial variability in both management techniques and efficiency from one mine to another. A number of vegetation indices, e.g., normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and atmospherically resistant vegetation index (ARVI), can be used for this kind of monitoring and assessment but lack sensitivity to subtle differences. For this reason, the main objective of this study was to explore the possibility to develop new, mining-tailored remote sensing indicators to monitor the impacts of REE mining on the environment and to assess the effectiveness of its related restoration using multitemporal Landsat data from 1988 to 2019. The new indicators, termed mining and restoration assessment indicators (MRAIs), were developed based on the strong contrast of spectral reflectance, albedo, land surface temperature (LST) and tasseled cap brightness (TCB) of REE mines between mining and postmining restoration management. These indicators were tested against vegetation indices such as NDVI, EVI, SAVI and generalized difference vegetation index (GDVI), and found to be more sensitive. Of similar sensitivity to each other, one of the new indicators was employed to conduct the restoration assessment of the mined areas. Six typically managed mines with different restoration degrees and management approaches were selected as hotspots for a comparative analysis to highlight their temporal trajectories using the selected MRAI. The results show that REE mining had experienced a rapid expansion in 1988–2010 with a total mined area of about 66.29 km2 in the observed counties. With implementation of the post-2010 restoration measures, an improvement of varying degrees in vegetation cover in most mines was distinguished and quantified. Hence, this study with the newly developed indicators provides a relevant approach for assessing the sustainable exploitation and management of REE resources in the study area.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1228
Author(s):  
Tiago B. Ramos ◽  
Lucian Simionesei ◽  
Ana R. Oliveira ◽  
Ramiro Neves ◽  
Hanaa Darouich

The success of an irrigation decision support system (DSS) much depends on the reliability of the information provided to farmers. Remote sensing data can expectably help validate that information at the field scale. In this study, the MOHID-Land model, the core engine of the IrrigaSys DSS, was used to simulate the soil water balance in an irrigated vineyard located in southern Portugal during three growing seasons. Modeled actual basal crop coefficients and transpiration rates were then compared with the corresponding estimates derived from the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) computed from Sentinel-2 imagery. On one hand, the hydrological model was able to successfully estimate the soil water balance during the monitored seasons, exposing the need for improved irrigation schedules to minimize percolation losses. On the other hand, remote sensing products found correspondence with model outputs despite the conceptual differences between both approaches. With the necessary precautions, those products can be used to complement the information provided to farmers for irrigation of vine crop, further contributing to the regular validation of model estimates in the absence of field datasets.


Author(s):  
Ankita P. Kamble ◽  
A. A. Atre ◽  
Payal A. Mahadule ◽  
C. B. Pande ◽  
N. S. Kute ◽  
...  

Pests and diseases cause major harm during crop development. Also plant stress affects crop quality and quantity. Recent developments in high resolution remotely sensed data has seen a great potential in mapping cropland areas infected by pests and diseases, as well as potential vulnerable areas over expansive areas. Crop health monitoring in this study was carried out using remote sensing techniques. The present study was carried out in MPKV, Rahuri, Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra. Vegetation indices like Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) were used to classify the crops into healthy and dead or unhealthy one. Sentinel-2 image data from October 2019 to January 2020 processed in Arc GIS 10.1 were used for this study. Vegetation is a key component of the ecosystem and plays an important role in stabilizing the global environment. The result showed that the average vegetation cover was decreased in the month of November and healthy vegetation was found more in month of October as compared to December and January. This shows that NDVI and SAVI indices for Sentinel-2 images can be used for crop health monitoring.


Author(s):  
M. Ustuner ◽  
F. B. Sanli ◽  
S. Abdikan ◽  
M. T. Esetlili ◽  
Y. Kurucu

Cutting-edge remote sensing technology has a significant role for managing the natural resources as well as the any other applications about the earth observation. Crop monitoring is the one of these applications since remote sensing provides us accurate, up-to-date and cost-effective information about the crop types at the different temporal and spatial resolution. In this study, the potential use of three different vegetation indices of RapidEye imagery on crop type classification as well as the effect of each indices on classification accuracy were investigated. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI), and the Normalized Difference Red Edge Index (NDRE) are the three vegetation indices used in this study since all of these incorporated the near-infrared (NIR) band. RapidEye imagery is highly demanded and preferred for agricultural and forestry applications since it has red-edge and NIR bands. The study area is located in Aegean region of Turkey. Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel was used here for the Support Vector Machines (SVMs) classification. Original bands of RapidEye imagery were excluded and classification was performed with only three vegetation indices. The contribution of each indices on image classification accuracy was also tested with single band classification. Highest classification accuracy of 87, 46 % was obtained using three vegetation indices. This obtained classification accuracy is higher than the classification accuracy of any dual-combination of these vegetation indices. Results demonstrate that NDRE has the highest contribution on classification accuracy compared to the other vegetation indices and the RapidEye imagery can get satisfactory results of classification accuracy without original bands.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo Reyes González ◽  
David Guadalupe Reta Sánchez ◽  
Juan Isidro Sánchez Duarte ◽  
Esmeralda Ochoa Martínez ◽  
Karla Rodríguez Hernández ◽  
...  

Irrigated agriculture requires better estimates of crop water demand. The aim of this study was to estimate the evapotranspiration (ETc) in forage corn through vegetation indices obtained in situ and estimated with remote sensing in the Comarca Lagunera, Mexico. The research was carried out in 2011 and 2012 in four 900 m2 plots irrigated with a subsurface drip irrigation system. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and crop coeff icient (Kc) during crop development were determined. The initial, maximum and f inal NDVI values were 0.13, 0.79 and 0.63 for both methods and in both cycles. The maximum Kc values were obtained 54 and 48 days after sowing (DDS) with GreenSeeker, and at 61 and 59 DDS with satellite images in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The results showed a good relationship between ETc estimated in situ and ETc estimated with remote sensing (r = 0.98) for both years. Although the variation of ETc using both methods was 1.2 mm day‑1, early in the cycle and 7.4 mm day-1 to flowering start-milky grains. Water needs of forage corn were estimated with similar precision using remote sensing and in situ measurements. Therefore, both methods can be used to improve irrigation scheduling and preserve water resources in agriculture.


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