Principal component inversion technique for the retrieval of leaf area index

Abstract

A simulation study has been carried out to investigate the Principal Component Inversion (PCI) technique for the retrieval of leaf area index (LAI). The PROSAIL model has been used for the forward analysis, i.e., estimation of reflectance for various combinations of LAI, soil reflectance, leaf angle distribution (o1), chlorophyll a+b concentration (Cab), etc. Independent test on sample with LAI range 0.1-7.0 indicated that the retrieved LAI from PCI has higher accuracy (RMSE=0.137) than the classical NDVI-LAI empirical approach (RMSE=1.139). The study needs to be extended to cover retrieval from different types of soil and simultaneous retrieval of different biophysical parameters viz., LAI, Cab, o1 to test the wider applicability of the PCI technique.