Advanced vegetation indices optimized for up-coming sensors: Design, performance, and applications

This paper describes the implementation of a physical and mathematical approach to designing advanced vegetation indices optimized for future sensors operating in the solar domain such as the medium resolution imaging spectrometer (MERIS), the global imager (GLI), and the VEGETATION instrument, and proposes an initial evaluation of such indices. These optimized indices address sensor-specific issues such as dependencies with respect to the actual spectral response of the sensor as well as the natural sensitivity of remote sensing measurements to illumination and observing geometry, to atmospheric absorption and scattering effects, and to soil color or brightness changes. The derivation of vegetation index formulae optimized to estimate the same vegetation property fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR) from data generated by different sensors allows the comparison of their relative performances compared with existing vegetation indices, both from a theoretical and experimental point of view, and permits the creation of global products, as well as the constitution of long time series from multiple sensors.