This course deals with the retrieval of quantitative information about vegetation canopies from remote sensing data. In particular, the focus will be on vegetation physiological parameters, namely leaf area index and phenology and how they can be estimated from remote sensing data.
Definitions and details about these parameters, how they are measured in the field, and how they are estimated using various remote sensing data will be provided during the course.
The course has a remote sensing focus to model vegetation phenology and biophysical parameters like leaf area index. In addition to interactive lectures, students will be familiarised with lab and field measurements of these parameters and in the practical exercises, they will use multispectral, hyperspectral, Radar and LiDAR data to model and estimate these parameters.
In the first part, the course deals with the topic of biophysical parameter measurements in the lab/field and their estimations using remote sensing, various statistical approaches and inversion of radiative transfer models.
The second part will address the topic of phenology and the calculation of phenological metrics by analysing time-series remote sensing data.
During a field visit, students will collect data and practice what they have learned earlier in the course. In the last two weeks of the course, students will work on their final assignment and will present it on the last day of the course.