Forest ecosystem processes at the watershed scale: Sensitivity to remotely-sensed leaf area index estimates

Abstract Recent research has shown that general trends in forest leaf area index along regional climatic gradients can be adequately characterized by using ratios of near-infrared and red reflectances. However it has proven difficult to represent properly the spatial distribution of Leaf Area Index (LAI) at sub-regional scales such as small catchments. The key problem at Thematic Mapper scale is the variation in canopy closure and understorey contribution, which dramatically influences near-infrared reflectance from conifer forests, [n this paper, a new spectral index is presented to estimate LAI of conifer forests using a combination of Red, NIR and mid-IR reflectances from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM). A simulation system (RHESSys) was used first, to generate potential vegetation patterns around a watershed in order to test them against remotely-sensed vegetation patterns, and secondly, to test the sensitivity of forest ecosystem processes to LAT estimated from combinations of the Thematic Mapper da...

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