Field scale wheat LAI retrieval from multispectral Sentinel 2A-MSI and LandSat 8-OLI imagery: effect of atmospheric correction, image resolutions and inversion techniques

This study assessed the effect of atmospheric correction algorithms, inversion techniques and image spatial and spectral resolution on wheat crop LAI retrieval using Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat-8 OLI imagery. The LAI retrievals were validated with in-situ measurements collected in farmers' fields. The MSI-based LAI retrievals improved significantly when images were atmospherically corrected using MODTRAN than using the libRadtran code. Among the two PROSAIL inversion approaches, look-up table outperforms artificial neural network for LAI retrievals. Using the best strategy of atmospheric correction and inversion, the effect of spatial resolution from 20 m (MSI) to 30 m (OLI) while using common six bands, showed non-significant improvement in LAI retrievals. The inclusion of additional two red-edge bands as available in MSI significantly reduced the uncertainly in LAI retrievals over that obtained by using six bands, while inclusion of only additional VNIR band did not show any significant effect on LAI retrievals.

Automated summary

Atmospheric correction using MODTRAN significantly improves LAI retrieval with Sentinel-2 MSI imagery, while lookup table inversion outperforms artificial neural network.