GNR 636 - Remote Sensing of Vegetation

Basics of radiation physics for remote sensing of vegetation, Plant and canopy function, Sensing vegetation properties based on multispectral and hyperspectral data, vegetation indices and vegetation descriptors, relationship between vegetation indices and LAI, fAPAR, and other biophysical variables, image classification of various vegetation types, Radiative transfer (RT) models and estimation of vegetation biophysical properties, multiangular sensing of vegetation structure, radiation transfer properties, canopy reflectance models, field measurements and collection of ancillary reference data, upscaling, downscaling, problems of non-linearity, LiDAR for vegetation applications, applications covering a cross-section of topics on vegetation.


  • Text / References:
  • W.G. Rees, Physical Principles of Remote Sensing, Cambridge university press, 2001.
  • Jones H.G. , Vaughan, R. A. Remote Sensing of Vegetation: Principles, Techniques, and Applications., Oxford university Press,2010.
  • Gustavo Camps-Valls, Lorenzo Bruzzone (Eds), Kernel Methods for Remote Sensing Data Analysis, Wiley, 2009 .
  • Prasad S. Thenkabail, John G. Lyon, Alfredo Huete (Eds), Hyperspectral Remote Sensing of Vegetation, CRC Press, 2011.
  • Durbha, S.S., King, R., & Younan, N. Support Vector Machines Regression for Retrieval of Leaf Area Index from Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer. Remote Sensing of Environment, 107(1), 348-361. 2007
  • Tan et al., 2006. Assessment of the Broadleaf Crops Leaf Area Index Product from the Terra MODIS Instrument, Agric. For. Meteorol.,135: 124-134.
  • Stéphane Jacquemoud, et al, , PROSPECT+;SAIL models: A review of use for vegetation characterization, Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 113, Supplement 1, 2009.
  • Clement Atzbergera et al., Suitability and adaptation of PROSAIL radiative transfer model for hyperspectral grassland studies, Remote Sensing Letters, 2013.