Dependence of attenuation in a vegetation canopy on frequency and plant water content

Theory is presented to provide insight into the observation that attenuation through vegetation is proportional to vegetation water content. In this analysis, the canopy is modeled as a sparse layer of randomly oriented particles (leaves, stalks, etc.) over a flat, homogeneous ground plane (soil) an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing 1996-09, Vol.34 (5), p.1090-1096
Main Authors: Le Vine, D.M., Karam, M.A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Attenuation
Biological and medical sciences
Biological effects of radiation
Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties
Exact sciences and technology
Frequency
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects. Techniques
Generalities. Biometrics, experimentation. Remote sensing
Geometry
L-band
Microwave and radio-frequency interactions (excluding resonances)
Non ionizing radiations. Hertzian waves. Biooptics
Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation
Optical scattering
Other interactions of matter with particles and radiation
Particle scattering
Physics
Rayleigh scattering
Remote sensing
Soil
Teledetection and vegetation maps
Tissues, organs and organisms biophysics
Vegetation
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Summary:Theory is presented to provide insight into the observation that attenuation through vegetation is proportional to vegetation water content. In this analysis, the canopy is modeled as a sparse layer of randomly oriented particles (leaves, stalks, etc.) over a flat, homogeneous ground plane (soil) and an expression is obtained for the "optical depth". The formulas developed by Ulaby and El Rayes are used to relate this expression to the water content of the canopy. In the low frequency extreme (Rayleigh scatterers), the attenuation varies almost linearly with water content and inversely with wavelength. In contrast, in the high frequency limit, the attenuation is independent of both water content and frequency, in between, geometry dependent "resonances" occur even at the low frequency end of the microwave spectrum (e.g. L-band) making the dependence of attenuation on frequency and water content specific to canopy architecture.
ISSN:0196-2892
1558-0644
DOI:10.1109/36.536525