Estimating Forest fAPAR from Multispectral Landsat-8 Data Using the Invertible Forest Reflectance Model INFORM

Remote Sensing

Huili Yuan⁴  Ronghua Ma⁴  Clement Atzberger³  Fei Li⁴  Steven Arthur Loiselle¹  Juhua Luo⁴  Randolph H. Wynne² 

[1] Dipartimento di Biotechnologia, Chimica e Farmacia, CSGI, Via Aldo Moro 2, University of Siena, Siena 53100, Italy; E-Mail:Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China;;Institute of Surveying, Remote Sensing & Land Information (IVFL), University of Natural Resources and Life Science (BOKU), Vienna 1190, Austria; E-Mail:;Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China; E-Mails:

关键词: INFORM;    model inversion;    neural network;    fAPAR;    LAI;    Landsat-8;    OLI;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs70607425

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The estimation of the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation in forests (forest fAPAR) from multi-spectral Landsat-8 data is investigated in this paper using a physically based radiative transfer model (Invertible Forest Reflectance Model, INFORM) combined with an inversion strategy based on artificial neural nets (ANN). To derive the forest fAPAR for the Dabie mountain test site in China in 30 m spatial resolution (size approximately 3000 km²), a database of forest canopy spectral reflectances was simulated with INFORM taking into account structural variables such as leaf area index (LAI), crown coverage and stem density as well as leaf composition. To establish the relationship between forest fAPAR and the reflectance modeled by INFORM, a logarithmic relationship between LAI and fAPAR was used previously established using on-site field measurements. On this basis, predictive models between Landsat-8 reflectance and fAPAR were established using an artificial neural network. After calibrating INFORM for the test site, forty-two forest stands were used to validate the performance of the method. The results show that spectral signatures modeled by INFORM correspond reasonably well with the forest canopy reflectance spectra derived from Landsat data. Deviations increase with increasing angle between surface normal of the hilly terrain and sun incidence. The comparison of estimated and measured fAPAR (R² = 0.47, RMSE = 0.11) demonstrates that INFORM can be inverted using neural nets to provide acceptable estimates of forest fAPAR. The accuracy of the predictions increased significantly when excluding pixels located in very steep terrain. This demonstrates that the applied topographic correction was not sufficiently accurate and should be improved for making optimum use of radiative transfer models such as INFORM.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.