Recent progresses on the remote sensing radiative transfer modeling over heterogeneous vegetation canopy

Abstract

Radiative transfer models establish the quantitative relationship between remote sensing signals and physical parameters, including the object properties, the object structures and the observation geometries, on the understanding of the interactions of the electromagnetic wave and the objects. They serve as the theoretical basis for the interpretation of the remote sensing signals and the retrieval of surface parameters. Recently spatial heterogeneity has drawn widespread attention in the field of quantitative remote sensing. The increasing high resolution imagery and LiDAR data provide a strong support for the consideration of heterogeneity. For the radiative transfer modeling process over heterogeneous vegetation scenarios, the component area ratio, the 3D structure and the distribution pattern within the pixel, and the shadowing and scattering effects near the boundary, are important factors that should be considered. The recent progresses on the VIS/NIR BRDF and the TIR directional emission modeling over heterogeneous land surfaces are introduced, respectively. The key scientific issues and future development directions of heterogeneous vegetation canopy modeling are proposed at last.