Fractional Vegetation Cover Products Research Articles

A new computationally efficient algorithm to generate global fractional vegetation cover from Sentinel-2 imagery at 10 m resolution

ABSTRACT The multi-angle method in the pixel dichotomy model (PDM) is used to produce fine spatial resolution (FSR) products of fractional vegetation cover (FVC), which involves numerous iterative computations. This phenomenon causes a low computational efficiency for global FVC. Here, we established the multi-angle equations, and simplified the two-stream approximation method to obtain multi-angle reflectance, which calculated the KDM parameters possible. Moreover, to accelerate the calculation of parameters in the multi-angle equations, land cover data were utilized as priority knowledge, which aims to decrease iterative computations to speed up the computational speed. Finally, we proposed an accelerated pixel dichotomy coupled linear kernel-driven model (PDKDM-A). By validating PDKDM-A using field measurements and FVC products, we found that the global FVC computed for various land covers exhibited strong agreement with the field measurements. The root mean square errors (RMSEs) were consistently below 0.150, except for grasslands, croplands, and cropland/natural vegetation mosaics. When comparing FVC products on the same scale, we discovered that the RMSE was less than 0.103, except for deciduous broadleaf forests. Our study demonstrates that PDKDM-A is an efficient algorithm, with the potential to quickly generate accurate global FVC products with fine spatial resolution.

Generation of a 16 m/10-day fractional vegetation cover product over China based on Chinese GaoFen-1 observations: method and validation

ABSTRACTAs China has recently launched the GaoFen-1 satellite (GF-1) carrying on the wide-field view (WFV) sensor, it is a challenging task to make full use of its observations to produce the fractional vegetation cover (FVC). In light of this, our study presents a comprehensive algorithm to generate a 16 m/10-day FVC product by considering the vegetation types characteristics. For forests, considering the foliage clumping effect, FVC was estimated from the gap probability theory using GF-1 leaf area index (LAI) and clumping index (CI) as a priori knowledge; for non-forests, FVC was estimated from the dimidiate pixel model using GF-1 normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The performance of GF-1 FVC from 2018 to 2020 was evaluated using FVC ground measurements obtained from 7 sites for crops, grasslands, and forests in China. The direct validation indicated that the performance of the FVC product was satisfactory, as evidenced by R2 = 0.55, RMSE = 0.15 and BIAS = 0.01 for all vegetation types. Furthermore, the GF-1 FVC exhibited better performance compared to the GEOV3 FVC at a spatial resolution of 300 meters. Moreover, the 10-day temporal interval of GF-1 FVC product successfully facilitated the extraction of regional phenological information at a spatial resolution of 16 meters.

Developing Spatial and Temporal Continuous Fractional Vegetation Cover Based on Landsat and Sentinel-2 Data with a Deep Learning Approach

Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) has a significant role in indicating changes in ecosystems and is useful for simulating growth processes and modeling land surfaces. The fine-resolution FVC products represent detailed vegetation cover information within fine grids. However, the long revisit cycle of satellites with fine-resolution sensors and cloud contamination has resulted in poor spatial and temporal continuity. In this study, we propose to derive a spatially and temporally continuous FVC dataset by comparing multiple methods, including the data-fusion method (STARFM), curve-fitting reconstruction (S-G filtering), and deep learning prediction (Bi-LSTM). By combining Landsat and Sentinel-2 data, the integrated FVC was used to construct the initial input of fine-resolution FVC with gaps. The results showed that the FVC of gaps were estimated and time-series FVC was reconstructed. The Bi-LSTM method was the most effective and achieved the highest accuracy (R2 = 0.857), followed by the data-fusion method (R2 = 0.709) and curve-fitting method (R2 = 0.705), and the optimal time step was 3. The inclusion of relevant variables in the Bi-LSTM model, including LAI, albedo, and FAPAR derived from coarse-resolution products, further reduced the RMSE from 5.022 to 2.797. By applying the optimized Bi-LSTM model to Hubei Province, a time series 30 m FVC dataset was generated, characterized by a spatial and temporal continuity. In terms of the major vegetation types in Hubei (e.g., evergreen and deciduous forests, grass, and cropland), the seasonal trends as well as the spatial details were captured by the reconstructed 30 m FVC. It was concluded that the proposed method was applicable to reconstruct the time-series FVC over a large spatial scale, and the produced fine-resolution dataset can support the data needed by many Earth system science studies.

Extracting vegetation information from high dynamic range images with shadows: A comparison between deep learning and threshold methods

Due to factors such as light angle and vegetation density, shadows can exist in ground vegetation images; this can lead to highly varying natural illumination in the images, which greatly limits the accuracy of fractional vegetation cover (FVC) estimation. While high dynamic range (HDR) images can reduce the extreme illumination contrast, the characteristic vegetation information in shadow areas is often lost. At present, most threshold methods do not fully utilize the spatial features of vegetation, and the results of vegetation classification under complex shadow conditions are associated with large errors. Thus, two deep learning methods (the HDR U-Net method and HDR U-Net++ method) are proposed in this study based on fully convolutional neural networks to extract vegetation information from HDR images under shadow conditions. These methods are compared with threshold methods. For full HDR images, the kappa coefficient and mean intersection over union (MIoU) of the HDR U-Net method and HDR U-Net++ method are 0.926, 0.931, and 0.874, 0.887, respectively. The FVC estimation accuracy and vegetation segmentation effect of these two deep learning methods are better than those of the three threshold methods considered. In addition, compared with normal exposure (NE) images, camera-based HDR images improve the extraction accuracy of deep learning methods and threshold methods for vegetation under shadow conditions. The results of this study suggest that deep learning methods are not affected by the threshold determination strategy selected and can more completely extract vegetation feature information from HDR images. The classification effect of vegetation under shadow conditions is effectively improved, and the vegetation segmentation and FVC estimation results are more precise. The combination of HDR images and deep learning methods can be applied to field scenes with complex lighting, which is beneficial to improve the ground data verification of remote sensing FVC products.

Fitness for Purpose of Several Fractional Vegetation Cover Products on Monitoring Vegetation Cover Dynamic Change—A Case Study of an Alpine Grassland Ecosystem

Long-time series global fractional vegetation cover (FVC) products have received widespread international publication, and they supply the essential data required for eco-monitoring and simulation study, assisting in the understanding of global warming and preservation of ecosystem stability. However, due to the insufficiency of high-precision FVC ground-measured data, the accuracy of these FVC products in some regions (such as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau) is still unknown, which brings a certain impact on eco-environment monitoring and simulation. Here, based on current international mainstream FVC products (including GEOV1 and GEOV2 at Copernicus Global Land Services, GLASS from Beijing Normal University, and MuSyQ from National Earth System Science Data Center), the study of the dynamic change of vegetation cover and its influence factors were conducted in the three-rivers source region, one of the core regions on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, via the methods of trend analysis and partial correlation analysis, respectively. Our results found that: (1) The discrepancy in the eco-environment assessment results caused by the inconsistency of FVC products is reflected in the statistical value and the spatial distribution. (2) About 70% of alpine grassland in the three-rivers source region changing trend is controversial. (3) The limiting or driving factors of the alpine grassland change explained via different FVC products were significantly discrepant. Thus, before conducting these studies in the future, the uncertainties of the FVC products utilized should be validated first to acquire the fitness of the FVC products if the accuracy information of these products is unavailable within the study area. In addition, more high-precision FVC ground-measured data should be collected, helping us to validate FVC product uncertainty.

Mapping Spatially Seamless Fractional Vegetation Cover over China at a 30-m Resolution and Semimonthly Intervals in 2010–2020 Based on Google Earth Engine

Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) is a critical biophysical parameter that characterizes the status of terrestrial ecosystems. The spatial resolutions of most existing FVC products are still at the kilometer level. However, there is growing demand for FVC products with high spatial and temporal resolutions in remote sensing applications. This study developed an operational method to generate 30-m/15-day FVC products over China. Landsat datasets were employed to generate a continuous normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series based on the Google Earth Engine platform from 2010 to 2020. The NDVI was transformed to FVC using an improved vegetation index (VI)-based mixture model, which quantitatively calculated the pixelwise coefficients to transform the NDVI to FVC. A comparison between the generated FVC, the Global LAnd Surface Satellite (GLASS) FVC, and a global FVC product (GEOV3 FVC) indicated consistent spatial patterns and temporal profiles, with a root mean square deviation (RMSD) value near 0.1 and an R 2 value of approximately 0.8. Direct validation was conducted using ground measurements from croplands at the Huailai site and forests at the Saihanba site. Additionally, validation was performed with the FVC time series data observed at 151 plots in 22 small watersheds. The generated FVC showed a reasonable accuracy (RMSD values of less than 0.10 for the Huailai and Saihanba sites) and temporal trajectories that were similar to the field-measured FVC (RMSD values below 0.1 and R 2 values of approximately 0.9 for most small watersheds). The proposed method outperformed the traditional VI-based mixture model and had the practicability and flexibility to generate the FVC at different resolutions and at a large scale.

Validation and analysis the fractional vegetation cover product from GF-1 satellite data in China

Validation and analysis the fractional vegetation cover product from GF-1 satellite data in China

Multi-Scale Validation and Uncertainty Analysis of GEOV3 and MuSyQ FVC Products: A Case Study of an Alpine Grassland Ecosystem

Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) products provide essential data support for ecological environmental monitoring and simulation studies. However, the lack of validation efforts of FVC products limits their applications. Based on Sentinel-2 data and intensive multi-scale measured FVC data, the accuracies of two FVC products (GEOV3 and MuSyQ) in alpine grassland ecosystems were validated through direct validation and multi-scale validation. Based on the heterogeneity of the underlying surface (HUS) of the monitoring plots, the impact of the HUS of the monitoring plots on the product validation was analyzed. The results showed that: (1) the measured data directly validated that the GEOV3 FVC product performed better than the MuSyQ FVC product; (2) the multi-scale validation method based on high-resolution reference FVC map of Sentienl-2 satellite images validated the accuracy of these two FVC products, which was higher than the accuracy directly validated by FVC measured data, leading to overestimation of the validation results; and (3) the HUS of the monitored plots has a significant impact on the FVC product validation. By quantifying the HUS of the monitored plots and removing the heterogeneous monitoring plots, the uncertainty of the validation results can be reduced. It is necessary to consider the impact of validation methods and the HUS on the validation results in future product validation.

Regional prediction of Fusarium head blight occurrence in wheat with remote sensing based Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed model

• Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a major fungal disease affecting wheat production. • Regional disease prediction using mechanistic models is difficult. • A remote sensing based model for regional prediction of FHB in wheat is proposed. • Optimized soil adjusted vegetation index (OSAVI) was used for model initialization. • Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) model was calibrated and verified. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the major fungal diseases affecting wheat production worldwide, influencing kernel development and producing poisonous mycotoxins. Mechanistic models have been extensively used for plant disease simulation; however, regional disease prediction using these models is difficult because they simplify the heterogeneous plant growth conditions. Herein, we present a remote sensing based Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) model for regional prediction of FHB occurrence in wheat. Plant properties that are key to the development of FHB are extracted from remote sensing data or data products to initialize or drive the model. Fractional vegetation cover products, time-series curves from satellite images, and vegetation indices were used to indicate plant density, phenology, and vegetation vigor. We applied our model to a plain region in China that suffers greatly from FHB annually. The SEIR model was parameterized by incorporating remote sensing data products, and then calibrated and verified for regional FHB prediction. The model was trained and evaluated by comparing the results of its prediction of FHB incidence to field observations during the susceptible period for wheat; satisfactory results were observed with a correlation coefficient of 0.804, root mean-square error of 0.131, classification accuracy of 0.860, and missed detection rate of 0.035 when the model was initialized with the Optimized Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (OSAVI). The disease progress curves furnished by our model display an S-shape—a characteristic of polycyclic diseases—which matches the wheat FHB epidemiology. These results indicate that our remote sensing-based SEIR model is promising for the regional prediction of FHB occurrence in wheat.

Comprehensive evaluation of global CI, FVC, and LAI products and their relationships using high-resolution reference data

In recent decades, several global clumping index (CI), fractional vegetation cover (FVC), and leaf area index (LAI) products have been generated using a range of optical satellite sensors. It is essential for the application community to understand the accuracy and uncertainty of these products. However, current validation studies have limited spatial coverage and temporal continuity, and the relationships between different products are not clearly understood. This study aims to validate the most recent global CAS-CI, GEOV2 FVC, and MODIS LAI products using the Ground-Based Observations for Validation (GBOV) and DIRECT 2.1 datasets. The relationships between these products, the leaf projection function in the nadir direction (G(0)), and the vertical structural characteristics of the forest were also analyzed. The GEOV2 FVC and MODIS LAI show good performance, whereas CAS-CI shows a slight underestimation (bias = −0.10) and strong seasonal variations. FVC and LAI are strongly correlated at different spatial scales [field, high-resolution (30 m and upscaled 3 km), and moderate-resolution (3 km)], particularly for forests [mean Pearson's correlation coefficients (r) = 0.90]. The CI-FVC/LAI relationship is more consistent across spatial scales for grass and shrubs than for forests. The derived G(0) overestimates the reference value (bias = 0.28) mainly due to inconsistencies between the CI, FVC, and LAI products. The overstory CI is very close to the overall forest CI, indicating that the understory may be neglected when estimating the overall CI. The overstory G(0) is similar to the overall G(0) for most forest types, except for the evergreen needleleaf forest. The overall CI-FVC/LAI relationship is mainly influenced by the overstory, while the FVC-LAI relationship is affected by both the overstory and understory. Overall, the CI-FVC/LAI relationship should be further evaluated and applied cautiously across different scales. The forest vertical structural characteristics revealed in this study are important for field measurement, remote sensing estimation, and modeling studies.

Integrating 250 m MODIS data in spectral unmixing for 500 m fractional vegetation cover estimation

• The 250 m MODIS data are integrated with the 500 m MODIS data for FVC estimation. • The 250 m features are stacked with the 500 m features for spectral unmixing. • The proposed method increases the accuracy of FVC estimation obviously. • The method has great potential for enhancing current 500 m FVC products. Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) is an important indicator to measure the potential for carbon neutrality in the terrestrial ecosystem. Spectral unmixing is a common choice for FVC estimation. To deal with the lack of endmembers and intra-class spectral variation, machine learning-based spectral unmixing methods have been developed, but the training samples were constructed based on the data acquired at a time different from the prediction time, which leads to great uncertainty in FVC estimation. Moreover, the used sample features may not cope with areas with strong heterogeneity, where vegetation cannot be reliably identified from the complex background. In this paper, for 500 m FVC estimation, the recently developed the spatio-temporal spectral unmixing model is applied to deal with the inconsistency between training and predicting data by extracting training samples at prediction time directly. Furthermore, more features from 250 m MODIS data are proposed to be integrated with the original 500 m MODIS data. Specifically, for sample construction, new features from 250 m bands (Red and NIR) are stacked with the original 500 m features. For model training, the random forest (RF) model is applied, which can handle high-dimensional data composed of features from different sources. The trained model is employed to predict the FVC of all 500 m MODIS pixels. The proposed method of incorporating 250 m data in 500 m FVC mapping was validated through experiments in five different areas. The results show that the accuracy of FVC mapping can be increased obviously by integrating 250 m features, and the training samples extracted at the prediction time are more reliable for modeling training. This paper has great potential for enhancing current 500 m FVC products at the global scale.

Estimating Maize Yield in the Black Soil Region of Northeast China Using Land Surface Data Assimilation: Integrating a Crop Model and Remote Sensing.

Accurate yield estimation at the regional scale has always been a persistent challenge in the agricultural sector. With the vigorous emergence of remote sensing land surface observations in recent decades, data assimilation methodology has become an effective means to promote the accuracy and efficiency of yield estimation by integrating regional data and point-scale crop models. This paper focuses on the black soil area of Northeast China, a national strategic grain production base, applying the AquaCrop crop growth model to simulate the fractional vegetation cover (FVC) and maize yield from 2000 to 2020 and then forming a reliable FVC optimization dataset based on an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) assimilation algorithm with remote sensing products. Using the random forest model, the regression relationship between FVC and yield was established from the long-term time series data, which is crucial to achieve better yield estimation through the optimized FVC. The major findings include the following: (1) The R2 of the assimilated FVC and maize yield can reach 0.557. (2) When compared with the local statistical yield, our method reduced the mean absolute error (MAE) from 1.164 ton/ha (based on GLASS FVC products) to 1.004 ton/ha (based on the calibrated AquaCrop model) and then to 0.888 ton/ha (the result after assimilation). The above results show that we have proposed a yield estimation method to provide accurate yield estimations by combining data assimilation and machine learning. This study provided deep insights into understanding the variations in FVC and revealed the spatially explicit yield prediction ability from the time series land surface parameters, which has significant potential for optimizing water and soil resource management.

Estimation and validation of 30 m fractional vegetation cover over China through integrated use of Landsat 8 and Gaofen 2 data

Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) is an important parameter that reflects the status of vegetation and can be used to quantify vegetation dynamics in system models of Earth. Currently, global FVC products are usually available at coarse spatial resolutions, and so cannot satisfy the requirements for detailed investigations of the distribution of vegetation cover in different regions worldwide. Thus, a fine-resolution FVC product that covers a large spatial extent is needed. In this study, we develop an operational framework to produce Landsat-like spatial resolution FVC products using high-resolution images and a machine learning algorithm. We used 1 m Gaofen 2 data to calculate the 30 m FVC, and then applied as training and testing data for modeling. The random forest regression model using Landsat 8 surface reflectance and solar angle as inputs outperformed the other models in terms of accuracy and efficiency and was selected to estimate the 30 m FVC. The model has a high training accuracy, with an R2 of 0.978 and an RMSE of 0.042. When validated using 346 independent ground measurements from 14 sites around the globe, the R2 was 0.814 and the RMSE was 0.170. We compared three coarse-resolution FVC products at both regional and national scales, including GLASS, GEOV2 and CGLOPS FVC products. The 30 m Landsat FVC from this study was spatially and temporally consistent with all reference FVC products, but provided advantages in revealing the fine spatial details of vegetation cover. The performance of the 30 m FVC model varied with vegetation type, but showed the highest consistency with the GLASS FVC for most vegetation types. Finally, by applying the established 30 m FVC model to all Landsat 8 data over China from 2013 to 2018, we derived a seasonal maximum FVC mosaic, which successfully demonstrated the seasonal and spatial variations in vegetation cover in China. We conclude that the proposed framework enables accurate estimation of FVC at a high resolution over a large spatial scale and so, can be used as part of an operational approach for generating a global fine-resolution FVC product.

Using a Vegetation Index-Based Mixture Model to Estimate Fractional Vegetation Cover Products by Jointly Using Multiple Satellite Data: Method and Feasibility Analysis

Remote sensing fractional vegetation cover (FVC) requires both finer-resolution and high-frequency in climate and ecosystem research. The increasing availability of finer-resolution (≤ 30 m) remote sensing data makes this possible. However, data from different satellites have large differences in spatial resolution, spectral response function, and so on, making joint use difficult. Herein, we showed that the vegetation index (VI)-based mixture model with the appropriate VI values of pure vegetation (Vv) and bare soil (Vs) from the MODIS BRDF product via the multi-angle VI method (MultiVI) was feasible to estimate FVC with multiple satellite data. Analyses of the spatial resolution and spectral response function differences for MODIS and other satellites including Landsat 8, Chinese GF 1, and ZY 3 predicted that (1) the effect of Vv and Vs downscaling on FVC estimation uncertainty varied from satellite to satellite due to the positioning differences, and (2) after spectral normalization, the uncertainty (RMSDs) for FVC estimation decreased by ~2.6% compared with the results without spectral normalization. FVC estimation across multiple satellite data will help to improve the spatiotemporal resolution of FVC products, which is an important development for numerous biophysical applications. Herein, we proved that the VI-based mixture model with Vv and Vs from MultiVI is a strong candidate.

Quantifying Fundamental Vegetation Traits over Europe Using the Sentinel-3 OLCI Catalogue in Google Earth Engine.

Thanks to the emergence of cloud-computing platforms and the ability of machine learning methods to solve prediction problems efficiently, this work presents a workflow to automate spatiotemporal mapping of essential vegetation traits from Sentinel-3 (S3) imagery. The traits included leaf chlorophyll content (LCC), leaf area index (LAI), fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR), and fractional vegetation cover (FVC), being fundamental for assessing photosynthetic activity on Earth. The workflow involved Gaussian process regression (GPR) algorithms trained on top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiance simulations generated by the coupled canopy radiative transfer model (RTM) SCOPE and the atmospheric RTM 6SV. The retrieval models, named to S3-TOA-GPR-1.0, were directly implemented in Google Earth Engine (GEE) to enable the quantification of the traits from TOA data as acquired from the S3 Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) sensor.Following good to high theoretical validation results with normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) ranging from 5% (FAPAR) to 19% (LAI), a three fold evaluation approach over diverse sites and land cover types was pursued: (1) temporal comparison against LAI and FAPAR products obtained from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for the time window 2016-2020, (2) spatial difference mapping with Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) estimates, and (3) direct validation using interpolated in situ data from the VALERI network. For all three approaches, promising results were achieved. Selected sites demonstrated coherent seasonal patterns compared to LAI and FAPAR MODIS products, with differences between spatially averaged temporal patterns of only 6.59%. In respect of the spatial mapping comparison, estimates provided by the S3-TOA-GPR-1.0 models indicated highest consistency with FVC and FAPAR CGLS products. Moreover, the direct validation of our S3-TOA-GPR-1.0 models against VALERI estimates indicated with regard to jurisdictional claims in good retrieval performance for LAI, FAPAR and FVC. We conclude that our retrieval workflow of spatiotemporal S3 TOA data processing into GEE opens the path towards global monitoring of fundamental vegetation traits, accessible to the whole research community.

Fractional Vegetation Cover Derived from UAV and Sentinel-2 Imagery as a Proxy for In Situ FAPAR in a Dense Mixed-Coniferous Forest?

The fraction of absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (FAPAR) is an essential climate variable for assessing the productivity of ecosystems. Satellite remote sensing provides spatially distributed FAPAR products, but their accurate and efficient validation is challenging in forest environments. As the FAPAR is linked to the canopy structure, it may be approximated by the fractional vegetation cover (FCOVER) under the assumption that incoming radiation is either absorbed or passed through gaps in the canopy. With FCOVER being easier to retrieve, FAPAR validation activities could benefit from a priori information on FCOVER. Spatially distributed FCOVER is available from satellite remote sensing or can be retrieved from imagery of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) at a centimetric resolution. We investigated remote sensing-derived FCOVER as a proxy for in situ FAPAR in a dense mixed-coniferous forest, considering both absolute values and spatiotemporal variability. Therefore, direct FAPAR measurements, acquired with a Wireless Sensor Network, were related to FCOVER derived from UAV and Sentinel-2 (S2) imagery at different seasons. The results indicated that spatially aggregated UAV-derived FCOVER was close (RMSE = 0.02) to in situ FAPAR during the peak vegetation period when the canopy was almost closed. The S2 FCOVER product underestimated both the in situ FAPAR and UAV-derived FCOVER (RMSE > 0.3), which we attributed to the generic nature of the retrieval algorithm and the coarser resolution of the product. We concluded that UAV-derived FCOVER may be used as a proxy for direct FAPAR measurements in dense canopies. As another key finding, the spatial variability of the FCOVER consistently surpassed that of the in situ FAPAR, which was also well-reflected in the S2 FAPAR and FCOVER products. We recommend integrating this experimental finding as consistency criteria in the context of ECV quality assessments. To facilitate the FAPAR sampling activities, we further suggest assessing the spatial variability of UAV-derived FCOVER to benchmark sampling sizes for in situ FAPAR measurements. Finally, our study contributes to refining the FAPAR sampling protocols needed for the validation and improvement of FAPAR estimates in forest environments.

Comprehensive Assessment of Performances of Long Time-Series LAI, FVC and GPP Products over Mountainous Areas: A Case Study in the Three-River Source Region, China

Vegetation biophysical products offer unique opportunities to examine long-term vegetation dynamics and land surface phenology (LSP). It is important to understand the time-series performances of various global biophysical products for global change research. However, few endeavors have been dedicated to assessing the performances of long-term change characteristics or LSP extraction derived from different satellite products, especially in mountainous areas with highly fragmented and rugged surfaces. In this paper, we assessed the time-series characteristics and LSP detections of Global LAnd Surface Satellite (GLASS) leaf area index (LAI), fractional vegetation cover (FVC), and gross primary production (GPP) products across the Three-River Source Region (TRSR). The performances of products’ temporal agreements and their statistical relationship as a function of topographic indices and heterogeneous pixels, respectively, were investigated through intercomparison among three products during the period 2000 to 2018. The results show that the phenological differences between FVC and two other products are beyond 10 days over more than 35% of the pixels in TRSR. The long-term trend of FVC diverges significantly from GPP and LAI for 13.96% of the total pixels, and the percentages of mismatched pixels between FVC and two other products are 33.24% in the correlation comparison. Moreover, good agreements are observed between GPP and LAI, both in terms of LSP and interannual variations. Finally, the LSP and long-term dynamics of the three products exhibit poor performances on heterogeneous surfaces and complex topographic areas, which reflects the potential impacts of environmental factors and algorithmic imperfections on the quality and performances of different products. Our study highlights the spatiotemporal disparities in detections of surface vegetation activity in mountainous areas by using different biophysical products. Future global change studies may require multiple high-quality satellite products with long-term stability as data support.

Global quasi-daily fractional vegetation cover estimated from the DSCOVR EPIC directional hotspot dataset

Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) represents the planar fraction of the land-surface covered by green foliage, and its dynamics are important for an enhanced understanding of ecosystems especially how they respond to climate change. The lack of global near-real-time satellite-based products restricts the application of FVC in ecosystem modeling, climate change, and vegetation phenology studies. Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft provides daily spectral reflectance of the entire sunlit Earth in the near Hotspot directions. Hotspot observations (i.e., observation in Hotspot direction which has the peak backscattering reflected radiation) with only sunlit vegetation and sunlit soil components are more suitable for FVC estimation with a two-endmember mixture model as such observations exclude contributions from shaded vegetation and soil components. In this study, an algorithm for retrieving quasi-daily FVC from EPIC based on two-endmember mixture and gap fraction models is developed. Analyses of its performance predict that the average Root-Mean-Square Deviations (RMSDs) of retrievals in FVC units is below 0.050 when compared with reference values. The RMSD is 0.043 when compared to field-based Landsat reference FVC, which confirms lower retrieval uncertainty than FVC retrieved from Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite products such as MODIS, VIIRS, and GEOV2 with RMSDs 0.049– 0.087. The comparison analyses suggest a good consistency between EPIC FVC and FVC products from LEO and geostationary (GEO) satellites sensor, SEVIRI, with RMSD values less than 0.129. EPIC allows for quasi-daily FVC estimation across the global terrestrial surface at 10 km resolution, which is an important development for numerous biophysical applications.

Fractional Vegetation Cover Estimation Algorithm for FY-3B Reflectance Data Based on Random Forest Regression Method

As an important land surface vegetation parameter, fractional vegetation cover (FVC) has been widely used in many Earth system ecological and climate models. In particular, high-quality and reliable FVC products on the global scale are important for the Earth surface process simulation and global change studies. Recently, the FengYun-3 (FY-3) series satellites, which are the second generation of Chinese meteorological satellites, launched with the polar orbit and provide continuous land surface observations on a global scale. However, there is rare studying on the FVC estimation using FY-3 reflectance data. Therefore, the FY-3B reflectance data were selected as the representative data to develop a FVC estimation algorithm in this study, which would investigate the capability of the FY-3 reflectance data on the global FVC estimation. The spatial–temporal validation over the regional area indicated that the FVC estimations generated by the proposed algorithm had reliable continuities. Furthermore, a satisfactory accuracy performance (R2 = 0.7336, RMSE = 0.1288) was achieved for the proposed algorithm based on the Earth Observation LABoratory (EOLAB) reference FVC data, which provided further evidence on the reliability and robustness of the proposed algorithm. All these results indicated that the FY-3 reflectance data were capable of generating a FVC estimation with reliable spatial–temporal continuities and accuracy.

Hybrid inversion of radiative transfer models based on high spatial resolution satellite reflectance data improves fractional vegetation cover retrieval in heterogeneous ecological systems after fire

In forest landscapes affected by fire, the estimation of fractional vegetation cover (FVC) from remote sensing data using radiative transfer models (RTMs) enables to evaluate the ecological impact of such disturbance across plant communities at different spatio-temporal scales. Even though, when landscapes are highly heterogeneous, the fine-scale ground spatial variation might not be properly captured if FVC products are provided at moderate or coarse spatial scales, as typical of most of operational Earth observing satellite missions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of a RTM inversion approach for estimating FVC from satellite reflectance data at high spatial resolution as compared to the standard use of coarser imagery. The study was conducted both at landscape and plant community levels within the perimeter of a megafire that occurred in western Mediterranean Basin. We developed a hybrid retrieval scheme based on PROSAIL-D RTM simulations to create a training dataset of top-of-canopy spectral reflectance and the corresponding FVC for the dominant plant communities. The machine learning algorithm Gaussian Processes Regression (GPR) was learned on the training dataset to model the relationship between canopy reflectance and FVC. The GPR model was then applied to retrieve FVC from WorldView-3 (spatial resolution of 2 m) and Sentinel-2 (spatial resolution of 20 m) surface reflectance bands. A set of 75 plots of 2x2m and 45 plots of 20x20m was distributed under a stratified schema across the focal plant communities within the fire perimeter to validate FVC satellite derived retrieval. At landscape scale, the accuracy of the FVC retrieval was substantially higher from WorldView-3 (R2 = 0.83; RMSE = 7.92%) than from Sentinel-2 (R2 = 0.73; RMSE = 11.89%). At community level, FVC retrieval was more accurate for oak forests than for heathlands and broomlands. The retrieval from WorldView-3 minimized the over- and underestimation effects at low and high field sampled vegetation cover, respectively. These findings emphasize the effectiveness of high spatial resolution satellite reflectance data to capture FVC ground spatial variability in heterogeneous burned areas using a hybrid RTM retrieval method.