1. Peatland leaf-area index and biomass estimation with ultra-high resolution remote sensing
- Author
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Sari Juutinen, Margaret Kalacska, Tarmo Virtanen, Mika Aurela, Aleksi Rimali, Kari Maenpaa, Aleksi Räsänen, Pauli Heikkinen, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Urban Environmental Policy, Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, and Environmental Change Research Unit (ECRU)
- Subjects
1171 Geosciences ,Peat ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,hyperspectral imaging ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,HYPERSPECTRAL VEGETATION INDEXES ,TEXTURAL FEATURES ,02 engineering and technology ,Land cover ,01 natural sciences ,PLANT FUNCTIONAL TYPES ,Biomass ,Leaf area index ,021101 geological & geomatics engineering ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Remote sensing ,Biomass (ecology) ,ultra-high spatial resolution ,Hyperspectral imaging ,REFLECTANCE SPECTRA ,Vegetation ,15. Life on land ,Spatial heterogeneity ,LAND-COVER ,AIRBORNE LIDAR ,Remote sensing (archaeology) ,SHRUB BIOMASS ,CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT ,General Earth and Planetary Sciences ,Environmental science ,unmanned aerial systems (UAS) ,leaf-area index ,RED EDGE POSITION ,ABOVEGROUND BIOMASS - Abstract
There is fine-scale spatial heterogeneity in key vegetation properties including leaf-area index (LAI) and biomass in treeless northern peatlands, and hyperspectral drone data with high spatial and spectral resolution could detect the spatial patterns with high accuracy. However, the advantage of hyperspectral drone data has not been tested in a multi-source remote sensing approach (i.e. inclusion of multiple different remote sensing datatypes); and overall, sub-meter-level leaf-area index (LAI) and biomass maps have largely been absent. We evaluated the detectability of LAI and biomass patterns at a northern boreal fen (Halssiaapa) in northern Finland with multi-temporal and multi-source remote sensing data and assessed the benefit of hyperspectral drone data. We measured vascular plant percentage cover and height as well as moss cover in 140 field plots and connected the structural information to measured aboveground vascular LAI and biomass and moss biomass with linear regressions. We predicted both total and plant functional type (PFT) specific LAI and biomass patterns with random forests regressions with predictors including RGB and hyperspectral drone (28 bands in a spectral range of 500-900 nm), aerial and satellite imagery as well as topography and vegetation height information derived from structure-from-motion drone photogrammetry and aerial lidar data. The modeling performance was between moderate and good for total LAI and biomass (mean explained variance between 49.8 and 66.5%) and variable for PFTs (0.3-61.6%). Hyperspectral data increased model performance in most of the regressions, usually relatively little, but in some of the regressions, the inclusion of hyperspectral data even decreased model performance (change in mean explained variance between -14.5 and 9.1%-points). The most important features in regressions included drone topography, vegetation height, hyperspectral and RGB features. The spatial patterns and landscape estimates of LAI and biomass were quite similar in regressions with or without hyperspectral data, in particular for moss and total biomass. The results suggest that the fine-scale spatial patterns of peatland LAI and biomass can be detected with multi-source remote sensing data, vegetation mapping should include both spectral and topographic predictors at sub-meter-level spatial resolution and that hyperspectral imagery gives only slight benefits.
- Published
- 2020
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