Leaf area index retrieval using gap fractions obtained from high resolution satellite data: Comparisons of approaches, scales and atmospheric effects

This study is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of the large scale LAI inversion algorithms using red and near infrared reflectance obtained from high resolution satellite imagery. Radiances in digital counts were obtained in 10m resolution acquired on cloud free day of August 23, 2007, by the SPOT 5 high resolution geometric (HRG) instrument on mostly temperate hardwood forest located in the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence forest in Southern Quebec. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), scaled difference vegetation index (SDVI) and modified soil-adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI) were applied to calculate gap fractions. LAI was inverted from the gap fraction using the common Beer–Lambert's law of light extinction under forest canopy. The robustness of the algorithm was evaluated using the ground-based LAI measurements and by applying the methods for the independently simulated reflectance data using PROSPECT+SAIL coupled radiative transfer models. Furthermore, the high resolution LAI was compared with MODIS LAI product. The effects of atmospheric corrections and scales were investigated for all of the LAI retrieval methods. NDVI was found to be not suitable index for large scale LAI inversion due to the sensitivity to scale and atmospheric effects. SDVI was virtually scale and atmospheric correction invariant. MSAVI was also scale invariant. Considering all sensitivity analysis, MSAVI performed best followed by SDVI for robust LAI inversion from high resolution imagery.