Response to Referee#3’s comments on “Area-averaged evapotranspiration over a heterogeneous land surface: Aggregation of multi-point EC flux measurements with high-resolution land-cover map and footprint analysis” by F. Xu et al.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feinan Xu
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feinan Xu ◽  
Weizhen Wang ◽  
Jiemin Wang ◽  
Ziwei Xu ◽  
Yuan Qi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The determination of area-averaged evapotranspiration (ET) at the satellite pixel scale/model grid scale over a heterogeneous land surface plays a significant role in developing and improving the parameterization schemes of the remote sensing based ET estimation models or general hydro-meteorological models. The Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research (HiWATER) flux matrix provided a unique opportunity to build an aggregation scheme for area-averaged fluxes. Based on HiWATER flux matrix datasets and a high-resolution land cover map derived from aircraft remote sensing, this study focused on estimating the area-averaged ET over a heterogeneous landscape with footprint analysis and multivariate regression. Firstly, the representativeness of multi-point eddy covariance (EC) flux measurements was quantitatively evaluated. The results show, the model estimated flux values cannot be directly validated with the flux tower measurements because the latent- and sensible heat fluxes measured by EC are determined by the upwind surface flux emanating from separate land cover classes, and a method in retrieving area-averaged fluxes should be applied. Secondly, a flux aggregation method was established combining footprint analysis and multiple regression analysis. The area-averaged sensible heat fluxes were obtained using the method and validated by the large aperture scintillometer (LAS) measurements. Finally, the area-averaged ET of the kernel experimental area of HiWATER was estimated through the flux aggregation schemes. The aggregated results were then regarded as ground truth for the remotely-sensed ET products. These findings demonstrate that the refined flux integration technique is a better method to determine the heterogeneous surface fluxes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 4037-4051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feinan Xu ◽  
Weizhen Wang ◽  
Jiemin Wang ◽  
Ziwei Xu ◽  
Yuan Qi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The determination of area-averaged evapotranspiration (ET) at the satellite pixel scale/model grid scale over a heterogeneous land surface plays a significant role in developing and improving the parameterization schemes of the remote sensing based ET estimation models and general hydro-meteorological models. The Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research (HiWATER) flux matrix provided a unique opportunity to build an aggregation scheme for area-averaged fluxes. On the basis of the HiWATER flux matrix dataset and high-resolution land-cover map, this study focused on estimating the area-averaged ET over a heterogeneous landscape with footprint analysis and multivariate regression. The procedure is as follows. Firstly, quality control and uncertainty estimation for the data of the flux matrix, including 17 eddy-covariance (EC) sites and four groups of large-aperture scintillometers (LASs), were carefully done. Secondly, the representativeness of each EC site was quantitatively evaluated; footprint analysis was also performed for each LAS path. Thirdly, based on the high-resolution land-cover map derived from aircraft remote sensing, a flux aggregation method was established combining footprint analysis and multiple-linear regression. Then, the area-averaged sensible heat fluxes obtained from the EC flux matrix were validated by the LAS measurements. Finally, the area-averaged ET of the kernel experimental area of HiWATER was estimated. Compared with the formerly used and rather simple approaches, such as the arithmetic average and area-weighted methods, the present scheme is not only with a much better database, but also has a solid grounding in physics and mathematics in the integration of area-averaged fluxes over a heterogeneous surface. Results from this study, both instantaneous and daily ET at the satellite pixel scale, can be used for the validation of relevant remote sensing models and land surface process models. Furthermore, this work will be extended to the water balance study of the whole Heihe River basin.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Bessardon ◽  
Emily Gleeson ◽  
Eoin Walsh

<p>An accurate representation of surface processes is essential for weather forecasting as it is where most of the thermal, turbulent and humidity exchanges occur. The Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) system, to represent these exchanges, requires a land-cover classification map to calculate the surface parameters used in the turbulent, radiative, heat, and moisture fluxes estimations.</p><p>The land-cover classification map used in the HARMONIE-AROME configuration of the shared ALADIN-HIRLAM NWP system for operational weather forecasting is ECOCLIMAP. ECOCLIMAP-SG (ECO-SG), the latest version of ECOCLIMAP, was evaluated over Ireland to prepare ECO-SG implementation in HARMONIE-AROME. This evaluation suggested that sparse urban areas are underestimated and instead appear as vegetation areas in ECO-SG [1], with an over-classification of grassland in place of sparse urban areas and other vegetation covers (Met Éireann internal communication). Some limitations in the performance of the current HARMONIE-AROME configuration attributed to surface processes and physiography issues are well-known [2]. This motivated work at Met Éireann to evaluate solutions to improve the land-cover map in HARMONIE-AROME.</p><p>In terms of accuracy, resolution, and the future production of time-varying land-cover map, the use of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to create a land-cover map using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery [3] over Estonia [4] presented better potential outcomes than the use of local datasets [5]. Consequently, this method was tested over Ireland and proven to be more accurate than ECO-SG for representing CORINE Primary and Secondary labels and at a higher resolution [5]. This work is a continuity of [5] focusing on 1. increasing the number of labels, 2. optimising the training procedure, 3. expanding the method for application to other HIRLAM countries and 4. implementation of the new land-cover map in HARMONIE-AROME.</p><p> </p><p>[1] Bessardon, G., Gleeson, E., (2019) Using the best available physiography to improve weather forecasts for Ireland. In EMS Annual Meeting.Retrieved fromhttps://presentations.copernicus.org/EMS2019-702_presentation.pdf</p><p>[2] Bengtsson, L., Andrae, U., Aspelien, T., Batrak, Y., Calvo, J., de Rooy, W.,. . . Køltzow, M. Ø. (2017). The HARMONIE–AROME Model Configurationin the ALADIN–HIRLAM NWP System. Monthly Weather Review, 145(5),1919–1935.https://doi.org/10.1175/mwr-d-16-0417.1</p><p>[3] Bertini, F., Brand, O., Carlier, S., Del Bello, U., Drusch, M., Duca, R., Fernandez, V., Ferrario, C., Ferreira, M., Isola, C., Kirschner, V.,Laberinti, P., Lambert, M., Mandorlo, G., Marcos, P., Martimort, P., Moon, S., Oldeman,P., Palomba, M., and Pineiro, J.: Sentinel-2ESA’s Optical High-ResolutionMission for GMES Operational Services, ESA bulletin. Bulletin ASE. Euro-pean Space Agency, SP-1322,2012</p><p>[4] Ulmas, P. and Liiv, I. (2020). Segmentation of Satellite Imagery using U-Net Models for Land Cover Classification, pp. 1–11,http://arxiv.org/abs/2003.02899, 2020</p><p>[5] Walsh, E., Bessardon, G., Gleeson, E., and Ulmas, P. (2021). Using machine learning to produce a very high-resolution land-cover map for Ireland. Advances in Science and Research, (accepted for publication)</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 15937-16003 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Metzger ◽  
W. Junkermann ◽  
M. Mauder ◽  
K. Butterbach-Bahl ◽  
B. Trancón y Widemann ◽  
...  

Abstract. The goal of this study is to characterize the sensible (H) and latent (LE) heat exchange for different land covers in the heterogeneous steppe landscape of the Xilin River Catchment, Inner Mongolia, China. Eddy-covariance flux measurements at 50–100 m above ground were conducted in July 2009 using a weight-shift microlight aircraft. Wavelet decomposition of the turbulence data enables a spatial discretization of 90 m of the flux measurements. For a total of 8446 flux observations during 12 flights, MODIS land surface temperature (LST) and enhanced vegetation index (EVI) in each flux footprint are determined. Boosted regression trees are then used to infer an environmental response function (ERF) between all flux observations (H, LE) and biophysical- (LST, EVI) and meteorological drivers. Numerical tests show that ERF predictions covering the entire Xilin River Catchment (&amp;approx; 3670 km2) are accurate to ≤ 18%. The predictions are then summarized for each land cover type, providing individual estimates of source strength (36 W m−2 < H < 364 W m−2, 46 W m−2 < LE < 425 W m−2) and spatial variability (11 W m−2 < σH < 169 W m−2, 14 W m−2 < σLE < 152 W m−2) to a precision of ≤ 5%. Lastly, ERF predictions of land cover specific Bowen ratios are compared between subsequent flights at different locations in the Xilin River Catchment. Agreement of the land cover specific Bowen ratios to within 12 ± 9% emphasizes the robustness of the presented approach. This study indicates the potential of ERFs for (i) extending airborne flux measurements to the catchment scale, (ii) assessing the spatial representativeness of long-term tower flux measurements, and (iii) designing, constraining and evaluating flux algorithms for remote sensing and numerical modelling applications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiang Zhou ◽  
Heather Tollerud ◽  
Christopher Barber ◽  
Kelcy Smith ◽  
Daniel Zelenak

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection (LCMAP) initiative involves detecting changes in land cover, use, and condition with the goal of producing land change information to improve the understanding of the Earth system and provide insights on the impacts of land surface change on society. The change detection method ingests all available high-quality data from the Landsat archive in a time series approach to identify the timing and location of land surface change. Annual thematic land cover maps are then produced by classifying time series models. In this paper, we describe the optimization of the classification method used to derive the thematic land cover product. We investigated the influences of auxiliary data, sample size, and training from different sources such as the U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Cover Trends project and National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2001 and NLCD 2011). The results were evaluated and validated based on independent data from the training dataset. We found that refining the auxiliary data effectively reduced artifacts in the thematic land cover map that are related to data availability. We improved the classification accuracy and stability considerably by using a total of 20 million training pixels with a minimum of 600,000 and a maximum of 8 million training pixels per class within geographic windows consisting of nine Analysis Ready Data tiles (450 by 450 km2). Comparisons revealed that the NLCD 2001 training data delivered the best classification accuracy. Compared to the original LCMAP classification strategy used for early evaluation (e.g., Trends training data, 20,000 samples), the optimized classification strategy improved the annual land cover map accuracy by an average of 10%.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 1677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lan H. Nguyen ◽  
Geoffrey M. Henebry

Due to a rapid increase in accessible Earth observation data coupled with high computing and storage capabilities, multiple efforts over the past few years have aimed to map land use/land cover using image time series with promising outcomes. Here, we evaluate the comparative performance of alternative land cover classifications generated by using only (1) phenological metrics derived from either of two land surface phenology models, or (2) a suite of spectral band percentiles and normalized ratios (spectral variables), or (3) a combination of phenological metrics and spectral variables. First, several annual time series of remotely sensed data were assembled: Accumulated growing degree-days (AGDD) from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 8-day land surface temperature products, 2-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2), and the spectral variables from the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2, as well as from the U.S. Landsat Analysis Ready Data surface reflectance products. Then, at each pixel, EVI2 time series were fitted using two different land surface phenology models: The Convex Quadratic model (CxQ), in which EVI2 = f(AGDD) and the Hybrid Piecewise Logistic Model (HPLM), in which EVI2 = f(day of year). Phenometrics and spectral variables were submitted separately and together to Random Forest Classifiers (RFC) to depict land use/land cover in Roberts County, South Dakota. HPLM RFC models showed slightly better accuracy than CxQ RFC models (about 1% relative higher in overall accuracy). Compared to phenometrically-based RFC models, spectrally-based RFC models yielded more accurate land cover maps, especially for non-crop cover types. However, the RFC models built from spectral variables could not accurately classify the wheat class, which contained mostly spring wheat with some fields in durum or winter varieties. The most accurate RFC models were obtained when using both phenometrics and spectral variables as inputs. The combined-variable RFC models overcame weaknesses of both phenometrically-based classification (low accuracy for non-vegetated covers) and spectrally-based classification (low accuracy for wheat). The analysis of important variables indicated that land cover classification for this study area was strongly driven by variables related to the initial green-up phase of seasonal growth and maximum fitted EVI2. For a deeper evaluation of RFC performance, RFC classifications were also executed with several alternative sampling scenarios, including different spatiotemporal filters to improve accuracy of sample pools and different sample sizes. Results indicated that a sample pool with less filtering yielded the most accurate predicted land cover map and a stratified random sample dataset covering approximately 0.25% or more of the study area were required to achieve an accurate land cover map. In case of data scarcity, a smaller dataset might be acceptable, but should not smaller than 0.05% of the study area.


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