Antarctic biological soil crusts surface reflectance patterns from landsat and sentinel-2 images

• Published in: Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências
• Main Authors: ELIANA L. FONSECA, EDVAN C. DOS SANTOS, ANDERSON R. DE FIGUEIREDO, JEFFERSON C. SIMÕES
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Academia Brasileira de Ciências 2022
• Subjects: biophysical parameters; cross calibration; classification; Google Earth Engine; time-series analysis; vegetation; Science; Q; Antarctic; The Antarctic; South Shetland Islands; Nelson Island; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202220210596; https://doaj.org/article/8e6a12f322924df48bdca81e65ab0c85

Abstract The remote sensing techniques must be used to obtain long-term information in remote areas, like the Antarctic continent, to monitor the environmental productivity and its changes. The aim of this work was to analyze the surface reflectance profile patterns for the Antarctic biological soil crusts (algae, lichens, and mosses) in an area of Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands, maritime Antarctic), calculated from Landsat and Sentinel-2 images to identify its similarities and differences due to targets, sensors and acquired date. The surface reflectance values for Antarctic biological soil crusts are similar for those observed for biological soil crusts in other Earth extreme environments, like deserts. In Landsat images, the differences among biological soil crusts surface reflectance were identified at visible and near-infrared wavelengths and for Sentinel-2 images, the differences occur at visible, red-edge and shortwave infrared wavelengths, showing the feasibility of using surface reflectance products to identify these different crusts, despite its inherent pixel spectral mixture. Long-term biophysical parameters from such crusts as retrieved from orbital data is not possible due to very low cloud-free images over the Antarctic, which prevents building a consistent surface reflectance time-series which covers all biological soil crusts growth season.