Validation of seasonal time series of remote sensing derived LAI for hydrological modelling

Author(s):  
Charlotte Wirion ◽  
Boud Verbeiren ◽  
Sindy Sterckx

<p>In urban environments, due to climate change urban heat waves are predicted to occur more frequently. Urban vegetation and the linked evapotranspiration rate can play a mitigating role. However, a major challenge in urban hydrological modelling remains the mapping of vegetation dynamics and its role in hydrological processes in particular interception storage and evapotranspiration. Conventional mapping of vegetation usually implies intensive labor and time consuming field work. We explore the potential of different remote sensing sensors (Proba-V, Landsat, Sentinel2, Apex) to characterize the urban vegetation dynamics for hydrological modelling. The here proposed remote sensing sensors show differences in the spectral and spatial resolutions as well as in their revisit time. However, in the urban environment we need a high spatial and spectral resolution to distinguish the urban landcover and a frequent revisit time to capture seasonal vegetation dynamics. Therefore, we propose a combination of different remote sensing sensors to derive leaf area index (LAI) timeseries in the urban environment. To improve the consistency in time series generated from different remote sensing sources a harmonization of the multi-sensor time series is proposed and validated with a multi-resolution validation approach using ground-truthing LAI (BELHARMONY project). The LAI timeseries, derived from the different remote sensing sensors, are then introduced into the hydrological modelling framework for a location- and time- specific assessment of the interception storage and evapotranspiration component. The effect of the sensor differences to the LAI timeseries on the hydrological response is analyzed.</p>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Castellaneta ◽  
Angelo Rita ◽  
J. Julio Camarero ◽  
Michele Colangelo ◽  
Angelo Nolè ◽  
...  

<p>Several die-off episodes related to heat weaves and drought spells have evidenced the high vulnerability of Mediterranean oak forests. These events consisted in the loss in tree vitality and manifested as growths decline, elevated crown transparency (defoliation) and rising tree mortality rate. In this context, the changes in vegetation productivity and canopy greenness may represent valuable proxies to analyze how extreme climatic events trigger forest die-off. Such changes in vegetation status may be analyzed using remote-sensing data, specifically multi-temporal spectral information. For instance, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) measures changes in vegetation greenness and is a proxy of changes in leaf area index (LAI), forest aboveground biomass and productivity. In this study, we analyzed the temporal patterns of vegetation in three Mediterranean oak forests showing recent die-off in response to the 2017 severe summer drought. For this purpose, we used an open-source platform (Google Earth Engine) to extract collections of MODIS NDVI time-series from 2000 to 2019. The analysis of both NDVI trends and anomalies were used to infer differential patterns of vegetation phenology among sites comparing plots where most trees were declining and showed high defoliation (test) versus plots were most trees were considered healthy (ctrl) and showed low or no defoliation. Here we discuss: i) the likely offset in NDVI time-series between test- versus ctrl- sites; and ii) the impact of summer droughts  on NDVI.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: climate change, forest vulnerability, time series, remote sensing.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3051
Author(s):  
Seokhyeon Kim ◽  
Hoori Ajami ◽  
Ashish Sharma

Appropriate representation of the vegetation dynamics is crucial in hydrological modelling. To improve an existing limited vegetation parameterization in a semi-distributed hydrologic model, called the Soil Moisture and Runoff simulation Toolkit (SMART), this study proposed a simple method to incorporate daily leaf area index (LAI) dynamics into the model using mean monthly LAI climatology and mean rainfall. The LAI-rainfall sensitivity is governed by a parameter that is optimized by maximizing the Pearson correlation coefficient (R) between the estimated and satellite-derived LAI time series. As a result, the LAI-rainfall sensitivity is smallest for forest, shrub, and woodland regions across Australia, and increases for grasslands and croplands. The impact of the proposed method on catchment-scale simulations of soil moisture (SM), evapotranspiration (ET) and discharge (Q) in SMART was examined across six eco-hydrologically contrasted upland catchments in Australia. Results showed that the proposed method produces almost identical results compared to simulations by the satellite-derived LAI time series. In addition, the simulation results were considerably improved in nutrient/light limited catchments compared to the cases with the default vegetation parameterization. The results showed promise, with possibilities of extension to other hydrologic models that need similar specifications for inbuilt vegetation dynamics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 4426
Author(s):  
Ranran Yang ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Qingjiu Tian ◽  
Nianxu Xu ◽  
Yanjun Yang

Most natural forests are mixed forests, a mixed broadleaf-conifer forest is essentially a heterogeneously mixed pixel in remote sensing images. Satellite missions rely on modeling to acquire regional or global vegetation parameter products. However, these retrieval models often assume homogeneous conditions at the pixel level, resulting in a decrease in the inversion accuracy, which is an issue for heterogeneous forests. Therefore, information on the canopy composition of a mixed forest is the basis for accurately retrieving vegetation parameters using remote sensing. Medium and high spatial resolution multispectral time-series data are important sources for canopy conifer-broadleaf ratio estimation because these data have a high frequency and wide coverage. This paper highlights a successful method for estimating the conifer-broadleaf ratio in a mixed forest with diverse tree species and complex canopy structures. Experiments were conducted in the Purple Mountain, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China, where we collected leaf area index (LAI) time-series and forest sample plot inventory data. Based on the Invertible Forest Reflectance Model (INFORM), we simulated the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time-series of different conifer-broadleaf ratios. A time-series similarity analysis was performed to determine the typical separable conifer-broadleaf ratios. Fifteen Gaofen-1 (GF-1) satellite images of 2015 were acquired. The conifer-broadleaf ratio estimation was based on the GF-1 NDVI time-series and semi-supervised k-means cluster method, which yielded a high overall accuracy of 83.75%. This study demonstrates the feasibility of accurately estimating separable conifer-broadleaf ratios using field measurement data and GF-1 time series in mixed broadleaf-conifer forests.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1623-1640 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Wißkirchen ◽  
M. Tum ◽  
K. P. Günther ◽  
M. Niklaus ◽  
C. Eisfelder ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this study we compare monthly gross primary productivity (GPP) time series (2000–2007), computed for Europe with the Biosphere Energy Transfer Hydrology (BETHY/DLR) model with monthly data from the eddy covariance measurements network FLUXNET. BETHY/DLR with a spatial resolution of 1 km2 is designed for regional and continental applications (here Europe) and operated at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). It was adapted from the BETHY scheme to be driven by remote sensing data (leaf area index (LAI) and land cover information) and meteorology. Time series of LAI obtained from the CYCLOPES database are used to control the phenology of vegetation. Meteorological time series from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) are used as driver. These comprise daily information on temperature, precipitation, wind speed and radiation. Additionally, static maps such as land cover, elevation, and soil type are used. To validate our model results we used eddy covariance measurements from the FLUXNET network of 74 towers across Europe. For forest sites we found that our model predicts between 20 and 40% higher annual GPP sums. In contrast, for cropland sites BETHY/DLR results show about 18% less GPP than eddy covariance measurements. For grassland sites, between 10% more and 16% less GPP was calculated with BETHY/DLR. A mean total carbon uptake of 2.5 PgC a−1 (±0.17 PgC a−1) was found for Europe. In addition, this study reports on risks that arise from the comparison of modelled data to FLUXNET measurements and their interpretation width. Furthermore we investigate reasons for uncertainties in model results and focus here on Vmax values, and finally embed our results into a broader context of model validation studies published during the last years in order to evaluate differences or similarities in analysed error sources.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document