Relationships between understory spectra and fractional cover in northern European boreal forests

Petri R. Forsström*, Jussi Juola, Miina Rautiainen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)
98 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Modern satellite and airborne optical images have increasingly higher resolutions and enable the study of all layers of forests, not just the forest canopy. To understand the contribution of different types of understory on the overall spectral reflectance signal, ground reference data are needed from different types of forests. In this paper, we present the analysis of spectral reflectance factors (350-2300 nm) and fractional covers of understory from 36 boreal forest stands. The data were collected during peak growing season in a southern boreal forest area in Finland. The study stands represent four different forest site fertility types. We used a spectrometer to measure understory spectra in nadir and vegetation quadrats to estimate fractional cover. We showed that the understory has specific spectral features related to the site fertility type and fractional cover. Our results suggest that remote sensing can be used to differentiate forest site fertility types and estimate understory green fractional cover in northern European boreal forests. The collected data are openly available in an open data repository.

Original languageEnglish
Article number108604
Number of pages7
JournalAgricultural and Forest Meteorology
Volume308-309
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Oct 2021
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • Forest reflectance
  • Forest site type
  • Hyperspectral
  • Vegetation index

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