US-Australia Cooperative Research: Theory and Application of a Discrete Object Approach to Scattering of Light by Vegetation Canopies

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

0218164 Strahler This award supports Professor Alan Strahler, a graduate student, and colleagues from Boston University for travel to collaborate in remote sensing research with Dr. David Lupp and others of the CSIRO Earth Observation Center in Canberra, Australia and with Professor Ziaowan Li and colleagues of the Institute of Remote Sensing Application of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. NSF support will enable the US group to participate in ongoing field measurements in Australia and China and to work with their collaborators to improve their theory. Their work focuses on the imaging of vegetation canopies from aircraft or satellites using radiometric instruments. They are developing an alternative to the radiative transfer theory of how light is scattered by vegetation canopies. Their approach describes the canopy as a collection of discrete three-dimensional objects, which leads to many practical applications. Their fundamental objective is to retrieve details from the vegetation cover such as the size, shape and spacing of the leaves and plants. This information will have direct application to studying the carbon balance and dynamics of vegetated ecosystems at landscape scales.