Retrieving leaf area index in discontinuous forest using ICESat/GLAS full-waveform data based on gap fraction model

Leaf area index (LAI) is an important vegetation structure parameter in terrestrial ecosystem modeling. Although the spaceborne Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) on board the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) has been proved to have potential for deriving forest LAI, previous methods were only applicable to estimate the effective LAI. In this study, a physical method based on the gap fraction model was proposed to retrieve the LAI correcting the between-crown clumping in discontinuous forest using GLAS full-waveform data. Landsat TM imagery was utilized as auxiliary data for providing crown cover information within the footprint. Using the gap probability from GLAS data and the crown coverage fraction from Landsat imagery, the method corrects the between-crown clumping, which has been proved to contribute most to the total clumping effect, and accurately estimates the LAI in discontinuous forest (R-2 = 0.83, RMSE = 0.39, n = 47). Additionally, the forest LAI underestimation caused by between-crown clumping was analyzed in practice and theory. Results show that the between-crown clumping has a nonnegligible influence on forest LAI estimation in cases that the forest area within the footprint is close to the nonforest area, and the average LAI of individual tree is high. This study may shed some light on the development of clumping effect and quantitative LAI inversion models.