Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements
The Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) is a well-established microwave metric of vegetation cover. The index utilizes measured linear scattering intensities from co- and cross-polarization and is normalized to ideally range from 0 to 1, increasing with vegetation cover. At long wavelengths (L-band) microw...
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| Format: | Article |
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Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119431 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8362-4761 |
| _version_ | 1826215279011561472 |
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| author | Szigarski, Christoph Jagdhuber, Thomas Baur, Martin Thiel, Christian Parrens, Marie Wigneron, Jean-Pierre Piles, Maria Entekhabi, Dara |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Szigarski, Christoph Jagdhuber, Thomas Baur, Martin Thiel, Christian Parrens, Marie Wigneron, Jean-Pierre Piles, Maria Entekhabi, Dara |
| author_sort | Szigarski, Christoph |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) is a well-established microwave metric of vegetation cover. The index utilizes measured linear scattering intensities from co- and cross-polarization and is normalized to ideally range from 0 to 1, increasing with vegetation cover. At long wavelengths (L-band) microwave scattering does not only contain information coming from vegetation scattering, but also from soil scattering (moisture & roughness) and therefore the standard formulation of RVI needs to be revised. Using global level SMAP L-band radar data, we illustrate that RVI runs up to 1.2, due to the pre-factor in the standard formulation not being adjusted to the scattering mechanisms at these low frequencies. Improvements on the RVI are subsequently proposed to obtain a normalized value range, to remove soil scattering influences as well as to mask out regions with dominant soil scattering at L-band (sparse or no vegetation cover). Two purely vegetation-based RVIs (called RVII and RVIII), are obtained by subtracting a forward modeled, attenuated soil scattering contribution from the measured backscattering intensities. Active and passive microwave information is used jointly to obtain the scattering contribution of the soil, using a physics-based multi-sensor approach; simulations from a particle model for polarimetric vegetation backscattering are utilized to calculate vegetation-based RVI-values without any soil scattering contribution. Results show that, due to the pre-factor in the standard formulation of RVI the index runs up to 1.2, atypical for an index normally ranging between zero and one. Correlation analysis between the improved radar vegetation indices (standard RVI and the indices with potential improvements RVII and RVIII) are used to evaluate the degree of independence of the indices from surface roughness and soil moisture contributions. The improved indices RVII and RVIII show reduced dependence on soil roughness and soil moisture. All RVI-indices examined indicate a coupled correlation to vegetation water content (plant moisture) as well as leaf area index (plant structure) and no single dependency, as often assumed. These results might improve the use of polarimetric radar signatures for mapping global vegetation. Keywords: microwaves; radiometer; radar; vegetation index; soil scattering; roughness; soil moisture; SMAP; SMOS |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:21:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/119431 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:21:35Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1194312022-10-02T07:49:38Z Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements Szigarski, Christoph Jagdhuber, Thomas Baur, Martin Thiel, Christian Parrens, Marie Wigneron, Jean-Pierre Piles, Maria Entekhabi, Dara Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Entekhabi, Dara The Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) is a well-established microwave metric of vegetation cover. The index utilizes measured linear scattering intensities from co- and cross-polarization and is normalized to ideally range from 0 to 1, increasing with vegetation cover. At long wavelengths (L-band) microwave scattering does not only contain information coming from vegetation scattering, but also from soil scattering (moisture & roughness) and therefore the standard formulation of RVI needs to be revised. Using global level SMAP L-band radar data, we illustrate that RVI runs up to 1.2, due to the pre-factor in the standard formulation not being adjusted to the scattering mechanisms at these low frequencies. Improvements on the RVI are subsequently proposed to obtain a normalized value range, to remove soil scattering influences as well as to mask out regions with dominant soil scattering at L-band (sparse or no vegetation cover). Two purely vegetation-based RVIs (called RVII and RVIII), are obtained by subtracting a forward modeled, attenuated soil scattering contribution from the measured backscattering intensities. Active and passive microwave information is used jointly to obtain the scattering contribution of the soil, using a physics-based multi-sensor approach; simulations from a particle model for polarimetric vegetation backscattering are utilized to calculate vegetation-based RVI-values without any soil scattering contribution. Results show that, due to the pre-factor in the standard formulation of RVI the index runs up to 1.2, atypical for an index normally ranging between zero and one. Correlation analysis between the improved radar vegetation indices (standard RVI and the indices with potential improvements RVII and RVIII) are used to evaluate the degree of independence of the indices from surface roughness and soil moisture contributions. The improved indices RVII and RVIII show reduced dependence on soil roughness and soil moisture. All RVI-indices examined indicate a coupled correlation to vegetation water content (plant moisture) as well as leaf area index (plant structure) and no single dependency, as often assumed. These results might improve the use of polarimetric radar signatures for mapping global vegetation. Keywords: microwaves; radiometer; radar; vegetation index; soil scattering; roughness; soil moisture; SMAP; SMOS 2018-12-04T19:59:45Z 2018-12-04T19:59:45Z 2018-11 2018-11 2018-11-22T14:25:38Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2072-4292 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119431 Szigarski, Christoph et al. "Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements." Remote Sensing 10, 11 (November 2018): 1776 © 2018 Authors https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8362-4761 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs10111776 Remote Sensing Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
| spellingShingle | Szigarski, Christoph Jagdhuber, Thomas Baur, Martin Thiel, Christian Parrens, Marie Wigneron, Jean-Pierre Piles, Maria Entekhabi, Dara Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements |
| title | Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements |
| title_full | Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements |
| title_fullStr | Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements |
| title_full_unstemmed | Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements |
| title_short | Analysis of the Radar Vegetation Index and Potential Improvements |
| title_sort | analysis of the radar vegetation index and potential improvements |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119431 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8362-4761 |
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