Publication
Title
On the relationship between ecosystem-scale hyperspectral reflectance and exchange in European mountain grasslands
Author
Abstract
In this paper we explore the skill of hyperspectral reflectance measurements and vegetation indices (VIs) derived from these in estimating carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes of grasslands. Hyperspectral reflectance data, CO2 fluxes and biophysical parameters were measured at three grassland sites located in European mountain regions using standardized protocols. The relationships between CO2 fluxes, ecophysiological variables, traditional VIs and VIs derived using all two-band combinations of wavelengths available from the whole hyperspectral data space were analysed. We found that VIs derived from hyperspectral data generally explained a large fraction of the variability in the investigated dependent variables but differed in their ability to estimate midday and daily average CO2 fluxes and various derived ecophysiological parameters. Relationships between VIs and CO2 fluxes and ecophysiological parameters were site-specific, likely due to differences in soils, vegetation parameters and environmental conditions. Chlorophyll and water-content-related VIs explained the largest fraction of variability in most of the dependent variables. Band selection based on a combination of a genetic algorithm with random forests (GA-rF) confirmed that it is difficult to select a universal band region suitable across the investigated ecosystems. Our findings have major implications for upscaling terrestrial CO2 fluxes to larger regions and for remote-and proximal-sensing sampling and analysis strategies and call for more cross-site synthesis studies linking ground-based spectral reflectance with ecosystem-scale CO2 fluxes.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Biogeosciences
Publication
2015
ISSN
1726-4170
1726-4189
DOI
10.5194/BG-12-3089-2015
Volume/pages
12 :10 (2015) , p. 3089-3108
ISI
000356179300018
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 03.11.2016
Last edited 09.10.2023
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