Semi-Automatic Fractional Snow Cover Monitoring from Near-Surface Remote Sensing in Grassland

Autor: Anaí Caparó Bellido, Bradley C. Rundquist
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Remote Sensing, Vol 13, Iss 11, p 2045 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2072-4292
DOI: 10.3390/rs13112045
Popis: Snow cover is an important variable in both climatological and hydrological studies because of its relationship to environmental energy and mass flux. However, variability in snow cover can confound satellite-based efforts to monitor vegetation phenology. This research explores the utility of the PhenoCam Network cameras to estimate Fractional Snow Cover (FSC) in grassland. The goal is to operationalize FSC estimates from PhenoCams to inform and improve the satellite-based determination of phenological metrics. The study site is the Oakville Prairie Biological Field Station, located near Grand Forks, North Dakota. We developed a semi-automated process to estimate FSC from PhenoCam images through Python coding. Compared with previous research employing RGB images only, our use of the monochrome RGB + NIR (near-infrared) reduced pixel misclassification and increased accuracy. The results had an average RMSE of less than 8% FSC compared to visual estimates. Our pixel-based accuracy assessment showed that the overall accuracy of the images selected for validation was 92%. This is a promising outcome, although not every PhenoCam Network system has NIR capability.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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