Investigating temporal variations in vegetation water content derived from SMOS optical depth

Author

Grant, J.P. ; Wigneron, Jean-Pierre ; Drusch, Matthias ; Williams, McKay ; Law, B.E. ; Novello, N. ; Kerr, Yann

Author_Institution

Eur. Space Agency (ESA-ESTEC), Noordwijk, Netherlands

fYear

2012

fDate

22-27 July 2012

Firstpage

3331

Lastpage

3334

Abstract

This study investigates the temporal behavior of the gravimetric vegetation water content (M_g) derived from SMOS (L-band) optical depth (τ) values. The analysis is done for the year 2010 over a coniferous forest site in the U.S. Resulting values of M_g are compared to values of leaf water potential obtained with the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere model and in situ data. A significant nonlinear correlation is found between the two (R=0.72, p<;0.001). It is found that the temporal behavior of M_g, based on plant water status, is different from that of existing optical-based vegetation indices, which are mainly based on chlorophyll/biomass changes. Therefore, τ-derived M_g could provide complementary information for future global-scale dynamic monitoring of vegetation water status.

Keywords

forestry; geophysical techniques; radiometry; remote sensing; soil; vegetation; AD 2010; L-band optical depth; SMOS optical depth; USA; biomass; chlorophyll; coniferous forest; gravimetric vegetation water content; leaf water potential; nonlinear correlation; optical-based vegetation indices; plant water status; soil-plant-atmosphere model; Atmospheric modeling; Biological system modeling; Biomass; Biomedical optical imaging; Indexes; Vegetation; Vegetation mapping; Passive microwaves; forest; optical depth; time series; vegetation water content;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2012 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Munich

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1160-1

Electronic_ISBN

2153-6996

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2012.6350590

Filename

6350590