Abstract
Vegetation water content could possibly provide widespread utility in agriculture, forestry and hydrology. In this article, three species leaves were measured radiometrically in order to determine a relationship between leaf water status and the spectral feature centered at 1,450 and 1,940 nm where there are strong water absorptions. The first step of our research is to measure leaf spectra with a FieldSpec-FR. After the spectral analysis using the continuum removal technique, the spectral absorption feature parameters: absorption band depth (D 1450, D 1940), the normalized band depth of absorption in 1,450 and 1,940 nm (BNA1450, BNA1940), the ratio of the two reflectance of continuum line (R 1450i /R 1940i ), the ratio of the two band depth (D 1450/D 1940) and the ratio of the two absorption areas (A 1450/A 1940) in the two wavebands were extracted from each leaf spectrum. The fuel moisture content (FMC), specific leaf weight (SLW), equivalent water thickness (EWT) were measured for each leaf sample. A correlation analysis was conducted between the spectral absorption feature parameters and corresponding FMC, SLW and EWT. In addition, some existing indices for assessing water status such as WI (water index), WI/NDVI (water index/normalized difference vegetation index), MSI (moisture stress index), NDWI (normalized difference water index)were calculated and the correlation between them and water status were analyzed too. The results by comparing the correlations indicated that the spectral absorption feature indices we proposed were better. The indexes BNA1940, D 1450/D 1940, and A 1450/A 1940 were well correlated with FMC, and the correlation between the indexes D 1450, D 1940, R 1450i /R 1940i and EWT were strong. The index A 1450/A 1940 was tested to be a good indictor for evaluating plant water content, because there was strongest positive correlation between it and FMC than other indices.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aber, J. D., Bolster, K. L., Newman, S. D., Soulia, M., & Martin, M. E. (1994). Analyses of forest foliage II: Measurement of carbon fraction and nitrogen content by end-member analysis. Journal of Near Infrared Spectroscopy, 2, 15–23.
Bauer, M. E. (1985). Spectral inputs to crop identification and condition assessment. Proceedings of the IEEE, 73, 1071–1085. doi:10.1109/PROC.1985.13238.
Bowman, W. D. (1989). The relationship between leaf water status, gas exchange, and spectral reflectance in cotton leaves. Remote Sensing of Environment, 30, 249–255. doi:10.1016/0034-4257(89)90066-7.
Carter, G. A. (1991). Primary and secondary effects of water content on the spectral reflectance of leaves. American Journal of Botany, 78(7), 916–924. doi:10.2307/2445170.
Ceccato, P., Gobron, N., Flasse, S., Pinty, B., & Tarantola, S. (2002). Designing a spectral index to estimate vegetation water content from remote sensing data: Part 1, Theoretical approach. Remote Sensing of Environment, 82, 188–197. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(02)00037-8.
Chuvieco, E., Cocero, D., Riaño, D., Martin, P., Martínez-Vega, J., de la Riva, J., et al. (2004). Combining NDVI and Surface Temperature for the estimation of live fuels moisture content in forest fire danger rating. Remote Sensing of Environment, 92(3), 322–331. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2004.01.019.
Curcio, J. A., & Petty, C. C. (1951). The near infrared absorption spectrum of liquid water. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 41, 302–304.
Danson, F. M., Steven, M. D., Malthus, T. J., & Clark, J. A. (1992). Highspectral resolution data for determining leaf water content. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 13(3), 461–470. doi:10.1080/01431169208904049.
Dawson, T. P., Curran, P. J., North, P. R. J., & Plummer, S. E. (1999). The propagation of foliar biochemical absorption features in forest canopy reflectance: A theoretical analysis. Remote Sensing of Environment, 67, 147–159. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(98)00081-9.
Gao, B.-C. (1996). NDWI-A normalized difference water index for remote sensing of vegetation liquid water from space. Remote Sensing of Environment, 58(3), 257–266. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(96)00067-3.
Gao, B.-C., & Goetz, A. F. H. (1995). Retrieval of equivalent water thickness and information related to biochemical components of vegetation canopies from AVIRIS data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 52(3), 155–162. doi:10.1016/0034-4257(95)00039-4.
Green, R. O., Conel, J. E., & Roberts, D. A. (1993). Estimation of aerosol optical depth and additional atmospheric parameters for the calculation of apparent reflectance from radiance measured by the airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer. In: Summaries of the 4th Annual JPL Airborne Geosciences Workshop, 25–29 October (Vol. 1, pp. 73–76). Washington, DC: AVIRIS Workshop. Available at: http://popo.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/workshops/93_docs/toc.html.
Hunt, E. R. Jr, & Rock, B. N. (1989). Detection of changes in leaf water content using near- and middle-infrared reflectance. Remote Sensing of Environment, 30, 43–54. doi:10.1016/0034-4257(89)90046-1.
Hunt, E. R. Jr, Rock, B. N., & Nobel, P. S. (1987). Measurement of leaf relative water content by infrared reflectance. Remote Sensing of Environment, 22, 429–435. doi:10.1016/0034-4257(87)90094-0.
Hunt, E. R. Jr. (1991). Airborne remote sensing of canopy water thickness scaled from leaf spectrometer data. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 12, 643–649. doi:10.1080/01431169108929679.
Inoue, Y., Morinaga, S., & Shibayama, M. (1993). Non-destructive estimation of water status of intact crop leaves based on spectral reflectance measurements. Nihon Sakumotsu Gakkai Kiji, 62(3), 462–469.
Jacquemoud, S., Ustin, S. L., Verdebout, J., Schmuck, G., Andreoli, G., & Hosgood, B. (1996). Estimating leaf biochemistry using the PROSPECT leaf optical properties model. Remote Sensing of Environment, 56(3), 194–202. doi:10.1016/0034-4257(95)00238-3.
Kokaly, R. F., & Clark, R. F. (1999a). Spectroscopic determination of leaf biochemistry using band-depth analysis of absorption features and stepwise multiple linear regression. Remote Sensing of Environment, 67, 267–287.
Kokaly, R. F., & Clark, R. N. (1999b). Spectroscopic determination of leaf biochemistry using band-depth analysis of absorption features and stepwise multiple linear regression. Remote Sensing of Environment, 67, 267–287. doi:10.1016/S0034-4257(98)00084-4.
Meyer, W. S., Peicosky, D. C., & Schaefer, N. L. (1985). Errors in field measurement of leaf difussive conductance associated with leaf temperature. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 36, 55–64. doi:10.1016/0168-1923(85)90065-6.
Palmer, K. F., & Williams, D. (1974). Optical properties of water in the near infrared. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 64, 1107–1110.
Parker, J. (1952). Desiccation in conifer leaves: Anatomical changes and determination of the lethal level. Botanical Gazette (Chicago, Ill.), 113, 189–198. doi:10.1086/335761.
Peñuelas, J., Filella, I., Biel, C., Serrano, L., & Savé, R. (1993). The reflectance at the 950–970 nm region as an indicator of plant water status. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 14, 1887–1905. doi:10.1080/01431169308954010.
Peñuelas, J., Piñol, J., Ogaya, R., & Filella, I. (1997). Estimation of plant water concentration by the reflectance Water Index WI (R900/R970). International Journal of Remote Sensing, 18, 2869–2875. doi:10.1080/014311697217396.
Piñol, J., Filella, I., Ogaya, R., & Peñuelas, J. (1998). Ground based spectroradiometric estimation of live fine fuel moisture of Mediterranean plants. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 90, 173–186.
Riaño, D., Vaughan, P., Zarco-Tejada, E., & Ustin, P. J. (2005). Estimation of fuel moisture content by inversion of radiative transfer models to simulate equivalent water thickness and dry matter content. Analysis at leaf and canopy level. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 43, 819–826.
Roberts, D. A., Brown, K., Green, R. O., Ustin, S. L., & Hinckley, T. (1998). Investigating the relationships between liquid water and leaf area in clonal Populus. In Summaries of the 7th Annual JPL Earth Science Workshop, 12–16 January, 1998, Pasadena, California (Vol. 1, pp. 335–344). JPL Publication 97–21. Available at: http://popo.jpl.nasa.gov/docs/workshops/98_docs/toc.html.
Roberts, D. A., Green, R. O., & Adams, J. B. (1997). Temporal and spatial patterns in vegetation and atmospheric properties from AVIRIS. Remote Sensing of Environment, 62, 223–240.
Rock, B. N., Vogelmann, J. E., Williams, D. L., Vogelmann, A. F., & Hoshizaki, T. (1986). Remote detection of forest damage. Bioscience, 36, 439–445.
Serrano, L., Ustin, S. L., Roberts, D. A., Gamon, J. A., & Peñuelas, J. (2000). Deriving water content of chaparral vegetation from AVIRIS data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 74(3), 570–581.
Tian, Q., Tong, Q., Pu, R., Guo, X., & Zhao, C. (2001). Spectroscopic determinations of wheat water status using 1650–1850 nm spectral absorption features. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 22, 2329–2338.
Tucker, C. J. (1980). Remote sensing of leaf water content in the near infrared. Remote Sensing of Environment, 10, 23–32.
Ustin, S. L., Darling, D., Kefauver, S., Greenberg, J., Cheng, Y.-B., & Whiting, M. L. (2004a). Remotely sensed estimates of crop water demand. In S.P.I.E. The International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology. 49th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, 2–6 August.
Ustin, S. L., Jacquemoud, S., Zarco-Tejada, P. J., & Asner, G. (2004b). Remote sensing of environmental processes, state of the science and new directions. In S. L. Ustin (Ed.), Manual of Remote Sensing. Remote Sensing for Natural Resource Management and Environmental Monitoring (Vol. 4, pp. 679–730). ASPRS. New York: Wiley.
Ustin, S. L., Roberts, D. A., Jacquemoud, S., Pinzón, J., Gardner, M., Scheer, G., et al. (1998). Estimating canopy water content of chaparral shrubs using optical methods. Remote Sensing of Environment, 65(3), 280–291.
Woolley, J. T. (1971). Reflectance and transmittance of light by leaves. Plant Physiology, 47, 656–662.
Zarco-Tejada, P. J., Rueda, C. A., & Ustin, S. L. (2003). Water content estimation in vegetation with MODIS reflectance data and model inversion methods. Remote Sensing of Environment, 85(1), 109–124.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, J., Xu, R. & Yang, S. Estimation of plant water content by spectral absorption features centered at 1,450 nm and 1,940 nm regions. Environ Monit Assess 157, 459–469 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-008-0548-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-008-0548-3