Recent Advancements in Optical Field Leaf Area Index, Foliage Heterogeneity, and Foliage Angular Distribution Measurements

In-situ estimations of leaf area index (LAI), leaf clumping, and leaf angular distribution are often performed from canopy gap fraction measurements with optical sensors. Two new procedures are used in this study to improve the estimation of gap fraction from digital camera photographs,: 1) the Digital Number (DN) of mixed sky-canopy pixels is use to estimate the within pixel gap fraction instead of the usual threshold used to separate a pixel in gap or a foliage pixel, and 2), the within pixel gap fraction is calculated at different view zenith and azimuth angles to take into account multiple scattering effects. To estimate foliage clumping, a gap size distribution is calculated from a narrow view zenith angle range (less than 1°). The clumping index is then extracted using 3 methods: 1) a refined gap size distribution theory developed for the TRAC instruments; 2) The Lang and Xiang logarithm gap fraction averaging and 3) a combination of 1) and 2). Clumping index variations with view zenith angle in the range from 15° to 70° are derived using the individual and combined methods. Analysis of the digital hemispherical photographs shows that 1) the three methods give different clumping estimates, but the angular variation patterns are similar, and 2) canopies with significant angular variation in clumping can induce large errors in the inverted leaf angle distribution when the clumping angular variation is not included in the retrieval. The practical implication of these findings is that LAI, clumping index, and foliage orientation can all be reliably retrieved using digital hemispherical photographs, considerably reducing the number and cost of instruments needed in fieldwork.