Optical remote sensing provides us with a two dimensional representation of land-surface vegetation and its reflectance properties which can be indirectly related to biophysical parameters (e.g. NDVI, LAI, fAPAR, and vegetation cover fraction). However, in our interpretation of the world around us, we use a three-dimensional perspective. The addition of a vertical dimension allows us to gain in...

Identification of refugia is an increasingly important adaptation strategy in conservation planning under rapid anthropogenic climate change. Granite outcrops (GOs) provide extraordinary diversity, including a wide range of taxa, vegetation types and habitats in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR). However, poor characterization of GOs limits the capacity of conservation planning ...

Flume studies have been carried out to investigate flow structure for relatively low velocities and inundation for vegetation typical to floodplains and wetlands, such as grasses and bushes. Mean velocity profiles and turbulence characteristics from flume experiments on three different natural vegetal roughness types are reported. Two relatively new approaches for describing vertical velocity p...

Satellite-based estimates of vegetation structure capture broad-scale vegetation characteristics as well as differences in vegetation structure at plot-scales. Active remote sensing from laser altimetry and radar systems is regularly used to measure vegetation height and infer vegetation structural attributes, however, the current uncertainty of their spaceborne measurements is likely to mask a...

Riparian vegetation is the main source of leaves and the main energy source for low order streams. Therefore, changes in its composition affect the structure and processes in streams. We studied the contribution of the riparian vegetation by analysing the annual input of litter in deforested and forested areas of a tropical stream. The lateral, vertical (aerial) and horizontal (drift) litter in...

Disturbance regimes are changing worldwide, and the consequences for ecosystem function and resilience are largely unknown. Functional diversity (FD) provides a surrogate measure of ecosystem function by capturing the range, abundance and distribution of trait values in a community. Enhanced understanding of the responses of FD to measures of vegetation structure at landscape scales is needed t...

Vegetation growing in the water along rivers has been the subject of several studies since it was recognized that it could have a significant impact on the water flow. It may increases resistance to flow and causes higher water levels. Also, it has affects on the turbulent structure such as the mean velocity profiles. For flow of water through emergent vegetation, previous investigations show d...

Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Earth System Dynamics (ESD). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in ESD if available. Abstract Multiple states of woody cover under similar climate conditions are found in both conceptual models and observations. Due to the limitation of the observed woody cover data set, it is unclear whether the observed bimo...

Vegetation controls important ecosystem processes responsible for energy and mass exchanges within the terrestrial biosphere. A comprehensive characterization of the vegetation canopy is thus required to monitor the heterogeneous and dynamic terrestrial biosphere. Although Earth Observation provides detailed measurements of the Earth surface, it has been a challenge to produce reliable data set...