Publications

Wu, CY; Niu, Z (2012). Modelling light use efficiency using vegetation index and land surface temperature from MODIS in Harvard Forest. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING, 33(7), 2261-2276.

Abstract
Light use efficiency (LUE) is of great importance for carbon cycle and climate change research. This study presents a new LUE model incorporation of vegetation indices (VIs) and land surface temperature (LST) derived from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) in Harvard Forest. Three indices, including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2) and the soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), were selected as indicators of forest canopy greenness. A single VI provided moderate estimates of LUE with coefficients of determination (R-2) 0.6219, 0.7094 and 0.7502 for NDVI, EVI2 and SAVI, respectively. Our results demonstrated that canopy LUE was related both to the canopy photosynthesis efficiency and air temperature (R-2 = 0.5634). Therefore, the MODIS LST product was incorporated as a surrogate for monitoring of environmental stresses as the observed relationship between LST and both air temperature (R-2 = 0.8828) and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) (R-2 = 0.6887). The new model in terms of (VI) x (Scaled (LST)) provided improved estimates of LUE estimation with R-2 of 0.7349, 0.7561 and 0.7879 for NDVI, EVI2 and SAVI, respectively. The results will be useful for the development of future LUE models based entirely on remote-sensing observations.

DOI:
0143-1161

ISSN:
10.1080/01431161.2011.608090