Vegetative canopy parameter retrieval using 8-band data

Precision agriculture, forestry and environmental remote sensing are applications uniquely suited to the 8 bands that DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2 provides. At the fine spatial resolution of 0.5 m (panchromatic) and 2 m (multispectral) individual trees can be readily resolved. Recent research [1] has shown that it is possible for hyperspectral data to invert plant reflectance spectra and estimate nitrogen content, leaf water content, leaf structure, canopy leaf area index and, for sparse canopies, also soil reflectance. The retrieval is based on inverting the SAIL (Scattering by Arbitrary Inclined Leaves) vegetation radiative transfer model for the canopy structure and the reflectance model PROSPECT4/5 for the leaf reflectance. Working on the paper [1] confirmed that a limited number of adjacent bands covering just the visible and near infrared can retrieve the parameters as well, opening up the possibility that this method can be used to analyze multi-spectral WV-2 data. Thus it seems possible to create WV-2 specific inversions using 8 bands and apply them to imagery of various vegetation covered surfaces of agricultural and environmental interest. The capability of retrieving leaf water content and nitrogen content has important applications in determining the health of vegetation, e.g. plant growth status, disease mapping, quantitative drought assessment, nitrogen deficiency, plant vigor, yield, etc.