Vegetation optical inversion: A remote view of the Earth's lungs

Vegetation plays a vital role in the Earth system, serving as an important renewable resource within the Earth's surface. As one of the most active and valuable influencing factors and indicators of global change, it simultaneously affects the energy balance of the Earth-atmosphere system and plays a crucial role in climate, hydrology, and biochemical cycles.

Therefore, Earth's vegetation and its changes have always been a focus of attention for scientists and governments around the world, and the ecological civilization concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" has now taken root in people's hearts. Vegetation parameters, as one of the important indicators for assessing ecosystem health, are receiving increasing attention.

Optical remote sensing of vegetation parameters

Today, the development of remote sensing technology provides an important technical means for monitoring the growth status and dynamics of vegetation.By acquiring optical remote sensing data of vegetation parameters, quantitative analysis of the structure and function of ecosystems can be performed.Unlike traditional ground-based measurement methods,Remote sensing expands the limited representative information obtained from traditional "point" measurements into "area" information (i.e., regional information) that is more consistent with the objective world, without causing damage to the ecosystem. It can estimate vegetation parameters in a long-term, dynamic, and continuous manner.It has irreplaceable advantages in estimating vegetation parameters at regional or global scales.

Remote sensing inversion of vegetation parameters

Satellite remote sensing quantitative inversion refers to the process of converting remote sensing observation data into quantitative ground features or surface parameters through mathematical models and algorithms.This method is often used to obtain surface physical and biochemical characteristics, such as vegetation cover, land surface temperature, vegetation biomass, and water concentration.

Vegetation on the land surface is usually the first layer for remote sensing observation and recording, and it is the information most directly reflected in remote sensing images.By extracting and inverting various vegetation parameters using vegetation information and its changes provided by remote sensing, we can monitor the process and patterns of change.  

CAS Xiguang Remote Sensing Satellite - Land Cover Classification

The rich spectral and spatial information provided by the hyperspectral data of Xiamen Science and Technology No. 1 03 satellite can be used to optimize features through dimensionality reduction in high-dimensional feature space, which is of great significance for improving the accuracy of classification.

Based on hyperspectral imagery of Xi'an and its surrounding areas, a random forest model framework can be used to identify and classify land cover with different characteristics. 

Chinese Academy of Sciences Xiguang Remote Sensing Satellite - Vegetation Index Change

Through mathematical models and algorithms, remote sensing data acquired by the Xiamen Science and Technology No. 1 03 satellite can be converted into vegetation indices. The vegetation index increases with increasing vegetation cover, reflecting the growth status of vegetation. Changes in the vegetation index can be used to detect vegetation growth status, vegetation cover, and eliminate some radiation errors.

Currently, vegetation remote sensing is mainly used for acquiring agricultural information, laying a solid foundation for smart agriculture. By analyzing various optical satellite images, land cover identification, crop identification, and growth monitoring can be achieved. With the development of science and technology and the needs of ecological civilization construction, using remote sensing data to retrieve vegetation parameters can provide crucial data support for ecosystem health assessment, thereby offering effective guidance for humankind to protect the Earth's ecological environment.