Leaf area index (LAI) is one of the most commonly used ecological variables in describing forests. Since 2000, 1-km resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based 8-day composites of LAI have been operationally available from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA, at no cost to the user. In this paper, we present a simple protocol to enhance the s...

Forest canopy leaf area index (LAI) is a critical variable for the modeling of climates and ecosystems over both regional and global scales. This paper proposes a physically based method to retrieve LAI and foliage area volume density (FAVD) profile directly from full-waveform Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data using a radiative transfer (RT) model. First, a physical interaction model bet...

The canopy photosynthesis and carbon balance of the subtropical forests are not well studied compared to temperate and tropical forest ecosystems. The main objective of this study was to assess the seasonal dynamics of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and potential canopy photosynthesis in relation to seasonal changes in leaf area index (LAI), chlorophyll concentration, and air tem...

Leaf area index (LAI) was developed to describe the number of layers of foliage in a monoculture. Subsequent expansion into measurement by remote-sensing methods has resulted in misrepresentation of LAI. The new name foliage layer index (FLI) is applied to a more simply estimated version of Goodall's "cover repetition," that is, the number of layers of foliage a single species has, either withi...

Leaf area index (LAI) is among the most important variables for monitoring crop growth and estimating grain yield. Previous reports have shown that LAI derived from remote sensing data can be effectively applied in crop growth simulation models for improving the accuracy of grain yield estimation. Therefore, precise estimation of LAI from remote sensing data is expected to be useful for global ...

In order  to study the effect of drought stress on some growth indices of oil sunflower cultivars, a study was conducted in Isfahan. The experiment was conducted as split plots in a randomized complete blocks design with three replications in Isfahan (51° 48' E, 32° 40' N).Main plots were drought stress in four levels (80, 100, 120, and 140 mm evaporation from evaporation pan class A and cultiv...

The potential of canopy reflectance modelling to retrieve structural variables in managed Norway spruce stands was investigated using the invertible forest reflectance model INFORM. INFORM was derived by coupling FLIM, SAIL and LIBERTY models, and was inverted with hyperspectral airborne HyMap data using a neural network approach. A relatively simple three layer feed-forward backpropagation neu...

Leaf area index (LAI) is a key biophysical parameter used to determine foliage cover and crop growth in environmental studies in order to assess crop yield. Frequently, plant canopy analyzers (LAI-2000) and digital cameras for hemispherical photography (DHP) are used for indirect effective plant area index (PAIe f f ) estimates. Nevertheless, these instruments are expensive and have the disadva...

in order to evaluate physiological and morphological characteristics and yield of soybean (glycine max l.) cultivars under different planting ratios a field experiment was conducted based on randomized complete block design with four replications at the gaem shahr agricultural research centre of mazandran province, iran, during 2008. two soybean cultivars (032 and sari) were planted in row inte...

Leaf area index (LAI) is an important bio-physical character of vegetation and can be effectively achieved through remote sensing technology. However the LAI inversion from low resolution data induces a scaling bias due to the heterogeneous of the surface and model non-linearity, which may cause the scale effect on the LAI estimate. In this work, the Yingke oasis of Heihe River is selected as t...