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Title: Using data from Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS and PhenoCams to monitor the phenology of California oak/grass savanna and open grassland across spatial scales

Abstract

tThe Mediterranean-type oak/grass savanna of California is composed of widely spaced oak trees withunderstory grasses. These savanna regions are interspersed with large areas of more open grasslands.The ability of remotely sensed data (with various spatial resolutions) to monitor the phenology in thesewater-limited oak/grass savannas and open grasslands is explored over the 2012–2015 timeframe usingdata from Landsat (30 m), the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS – gridded 500 m),and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS – gridded 500 m) data. Vegetation phenologydetected from near-ground level, webcam based PhenoCam imagery from two sites in the Ameriflux Net-work (long-term flux measurement network of the Americas) (Tonzi Ranch and Vaira Ranch) is upscaled,using a National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) aerial image (1 m), to evaluate the detection ofvegetation phenology of these savannas and grasslands with the satellite data. Results show that the Nor-malized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series observed from the satellite sensors are all stronglycorrelated with the PhenoCam NDVI values from Tonzi Ranch (R2> 0.67) and Vaira Ranch (R2> 0.81). How-ever, the different viewing geometries and spatial coverage of the PhenoCams and the various satellitesensors may cause differences in the absolute phenological transition dates. Analysis of frequency his-tograms of phenological datesmore » illustrate that the phenological dates in the relatively homogeneous opengrasslands are consistent across the different spatial resolutions, in contrast, the relatively heterogeneousoak/grass savannas display has somewhat later greenup, maturity, and dormancy dates at 30 m resolu-tion than at 500 m scale due to the different phenological cycles exhibited by the overstory trees and theunderstory grasses. In addition, phenologies derived from the MODIS view angle corrected reflectance(Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance – NBAR) and the newly developed VIIRS NBAR are shown to providecomparable phenological dates (majority absolute bias ≤2 days) in this area.« less

Authors:
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1392711
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1426772
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0016011
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Published Article
Journal Name:
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Journal Volume: 237-238 Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0168-1923
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
Netherlands
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Savannas; Land surface phenology; near surface webcams; Satellite sensor resolution; MODIS; VIIRS; Landsat

Citation Formats

Liu, Yan, Hill, Michael J., Zhang, Xiaoyang, Wang, Zhuosen, Richardson, Andrew D., Hufkens, Koen, Filippa, Gianluca, Baldocchi, Dennis D., Ma, Siyan, Verfaillie, Joseph, and Schaaf, Crystal B. Using data from Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS and PhenoCams to monitor the phenology of California oak/grass savanna and open grassland across spatial scales. Netherlands: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.02.026.
Liu, Yan, Hill, Michael J., Zhang, Xiaoyang, Wang, Zhuosen, Richardson, Andrew D., Hufkens, Koen, Filippa, Gianluca, Baldocchi, Dennis D., Ma, Siyan, Verfaillie, Joseph, & Schaaf, Crystal B. Using data from Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS and PhenoCams to monitor the phenology of California oak/grass savanna and open grassland across spatial scales. Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.02.026
Liu, Yan, Hill, Michael J., Zhang, Xiaoyang, Wang, Zhuosen, Richardson, Andrew D., Hufkens, Koen, Filippa, Gianluca, Baldocchi, Dennis D., Ma, Siyan, Verfaillie, Joseph, and Schaaf, Crystal B. 2017. "Using data from Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS and PhenoCams to monitor the phenology of California oak/grass savanna and open grassland across spatial scales". Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.02.026.
@article{osti_1392711,
title = {Using data from Landsat, MODIS, VIIRS and PhenoCams to monitor the phenology of California oak/grass savanna and open grassland across spatial scales},
author = {Liu, Yan and Hill, Michael J. and Zhang, Xiaoyang and Wang, Zhuosen and Richardson, Andrew D. and Hufkens, Koen and Filippa, Gianluca and Baldocchi, Dennis D. and Ma, Siyan and Verfaillie, Joseph and Schaaf, Crystal B.},
abstractNote = {tThe Mediterranean-type oak/grass savanna of California is composed of widely spaced oak trees withunderstory grasses. These savanna regions are interspersed with large areas of more open grasslands.The ability of remotely sensed data (with various spatial resolutions) to monitor the phenology in thesewater-limited oak/grass savannas and open grasslands is explored over the 2012–2015 timeframe usingdata from Landsat (30 m), the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS – gridded 500 m),and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS – gridded 500 m) data. Vegetation phenologydetected from near-ground level, webcam based PhenoCam imagery from two sites in the Ameriflux Net-work (long-term flux measurement network of the Americas) (Tonzi Ranch and Vaira Ranch) is upscaled,using a National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) aerial image (1 m), to evaluate the detection ofvegetation phenology of these savannas and grasslands with the satellite data. Results show that the Nor-malized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series observed from the satellite sensors are all stronglycorrelated with the PhenoCam NDVI values from Tonzi Ranch (R2> 0.67) and Vaira Ranch (R2> 0.81). How-ever, the different viewing geometries and spatial coverage of the PhenoCams and the various satellitesensors may cause differences in the absolute phenological transition dates. Analysis of frequency his-tograms of phenological dates illustrate that the phenological dates in the relatively homogeneous opengrasslands are consistent across the different spatial resolutions, in contrast, the relatively heterogeneousoak/grass savannas display has somewhat later greenup, maturity, and dormancy dates at 30 m resolu-tion than at 500 m scale due to the different phenological cycles exhibited by the overstory trees and theunderstory grasses. In addition, phenologies derived from the MODIS view angle corrected reflectance(Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance – NBAR) and the newly developed VIIRS NBAR are shown to providecomparable phenological dates (majority absolute bias ≤2 days) in this area.},
doi = {10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.02.026},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1392711}, journal = {Agricultural and Forest Meteorology},
issn = {0168-1923},
number = C,
volume = 237-238,
place = {Netherlands},
year = {Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.02.026

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Works referencing / citing this record:

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