ESA Data Assimilation Projects: Impact of Vegetation Structural Heterogeneity for Modelling Reflectance and pPoductivity
Lines, E.R.1; Quaife, T.2; Lewis, P.1
1University College London, UNITED KINGDOM; 2University of Reading, UNITED KINGDOM

Earth observation data has the potential to inform land surface and vegetation models on the state of terrestrial vegetation on much larger spatial and finer temporal scales than are available from ground-based data. Data Assimilation techniques can be used to link EO data to vegetation structure and process through the use of radiative transfer models, but this requires an understanding of the effect of vegetation structure on the radiometric signal. Structural features, such as variation in leaf area, angle and clumping, leaf biochemistry and canopy layering are known to affect canopy light environment and light interception by vegetation, which must be accurately quantified in order to calculate carbon assimilation and ecosystem productivity. This work, part of the European Space Agency Data Assimilation project (ESA-DA), explores the impact of including a detailed description of vertical canopy structure within a radiative transfer model on modelled reflectance. and estimates of productivity.