Summer to autumn changes in vegetation spectral indices of deciduous trees

John Cipar; Thomas Cooley; Ronald Lockwood

doi:10.1117/12.793162

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30 August 2008 Summer to autumn changes in vegetation spectral indices of deciduous trees

John Cipar, Thomas Cooley, Ronald Lockwood

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Proceedings Volume 7083, Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability V; 708306 (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.793162
Event: Optical Engineering + Applications, 2008, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to measure changes in deciduous tree reflectance spectra as a function of time from late summer to autumn senescence. Leaves were harvested from two maple trees growing in eastern Massachusetts. Reflectance in the 350-2500 nm range was measured in the laboratory on stacks of freshly-harvested leaves. We calculated a number of published spectral indices, finding that most of the indices varied remarkably little across the time period. In some case, the measurement uncertainty was small, although the measurements exhibited wide scatter over the time period. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index showed only a slight downward drift throughout the measurement period. The red edge wavelength was observed to decrease dramatically from the summer growth period (~725 nm) to autumn senescence (~700 nm).

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John Cipar, Thomas Cooley, and Ronald Lockwood "Summer to autumn changes in vegetation spectral indices of deciduous trees", Proc. SPIE 7083, Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability V, 708306 (30 August 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.793162

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