Parameterization of sparse vegetation in thermal images of natural ground landscapes

Eyal Agassi; Nissim Ben-Yosef

doi:10.1117/1.601504

1 October 1997 Parameterization of sparse vegetation in thermal images of natural ground landscapes

Eyal Agassi, Nissim Ben-Yosef

Optical Engineering, Vol. 36, Issue 10, (October 1997). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.601504

The radiant statistics of thermal images of desert terrain scenes and their temporal behavior have been fully understood and well modeled. Unlike desert scenes, most natural terrestrial landscapes contain vegetative objects. A plant is a living object that regulates its temperature through evapotranspiration of leaf stomata, and plant interaction with the outside world is influenced by its physiological processes. Therefore, the heat balance equation for a vegetative object differs from that for an inorganic surface element. Despite this difficulty, plants can be incorporated into the desert surface model when an effective heat conduction parameter is associated with vegetation. Due to evapotranspiration, the effective heat conduction of plants during daytime is much higher than at night. As a result, plants (mainly trees and bushes) are usually the coldest objects in the scene in the daytime while they are not necessarily the warmest objects at night. The parameterization of vegetative objects in terms of effective heat conduction enables the extension of the desert terrain model for scenes with sparse vegetation and the estimation of their radiant statistics and their diurnal behavior. The effective heat conduction image can serve as a tool for vegetation type classification and assessment of the dominant physical process that determinate thermal image properties.

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Eyal Agassi and Nissim Ben-Yosef "Parameterization of sparse vegetation in thermal images of natural ground landscapes," Optical Engineering 36(10), (1 October 1997). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.601504

Published: 1 October 1997

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