An innovative use of orthophotos – possibilities to assess plant productivity from colour infrared aerial orthophotos

• Published in: Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation
• Main Authors: Erlandsson, Rasmus, Stoessel, Marianne, Skånes, Helle, Wennbom, Marika, Angerbjörn, Anders
• Other Authors: Horning, Ned, Zhang, Jian, EU/Interreg Sweden-Norway Felles Fjellrev II, Fjällräven International AB
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019
• Subjects: Fennoscandian; Tundra
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rse2.108; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Frse2.108; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/rse2.108; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/rse2.108; https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/rse2.108

Abstract Studies of ecological processes should focus on a relevant spatial scale, as crude spatial resolution will fail to detect small scale variation which is of potentially critical importance. Remote sensing methods based on multispectral satellite images are used to assess primary productivity and aerial photos to map vegetation structure. Both methods are based on the principle that photosynthetically active vegetation has a characteristic spectral signature. Yet they are applied differently due to technical differences. Satellite images are suitable for calculations of vegetation indices, for example Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ( NDVI ). Colour infrared aerial photography was developed for visual interpretation and never regarded for calculation of indices since the spectrum recorded and post processing differ from satellite images. With digital cameras and improved techniques for generating colour infrared orthophotos, the implications of these differences are uncertain and should be explored. We tested if plant productivity can be assessed using colour infrared aerial orthophotos (0.5 m resolution) by applying the standard NDVI equation. With 112 vegetation samples as ground truth, we evaluated an index that we denote rel‐ NDVI ortho in two areas of the Fennoscandian mountain tundra. We compared the results with conventional SPOT 5 satellite‐based NDVI (10 m resolution). rel‐ NDVI ortho was related to plant productivity (Northern area: P = <0.001, R 2 = 0.73; Southern area: P = <0.001, R 2 = 0.39), performed similar to SPOT 5 satellite NDVI (Northern area: P = <0.001, R 2 = 0.76; Southern area: P = <0.001, R 2 = 0.40) and the two methods were highly correlated (cor = 0.95 and cor = 0.84). Despite different plant composition, the results were consistent between areas. Our results suggest that vegetation indices based on colour infrared aerial orthophotos can be a valuable tool in the remote sensing toolbox, offering a high‐spatial resolution proxy for plant productivity with less ...