A Mixture Modeling Approach to Estimate
Vegetation Parameters for Heterogeneous
Canopies in Remote Sensing
M. A. Gilabert,* F. J. Garca-Haro,* and J. Melia*
I n this article, we describe a reflectance model which
parametrizes the reflectance of vegetation canopies from
optical properties of leaves and soil, and dominant can-
opy structural parameters. The model assumes certain
principles of geometric models, for example, that sensor
integrates the radiance reflected from three components,
plant, shaded soil, and illuminated soil. Its inversion pro-
vides compositional information of the ground surface
that is linked with the interpretation of the linear spec-
tral mixture modeling (LSMM). This model also offers
the potential for retrieving other meaningful biophysical
properties such as LAI. The model has been tested on
simulated spectra of spectral mixtures in presence of sig-
nificant multiple scattering. Results indicate that this mod-
eling approach is a suitable remote sensing tool for retriev-
ing the vegetation abundance in heterogeneous canopies,
which is interpreted as the fractional cover of plants with
well-defined structural parameters. Elsevier Science
Inc., 2000
INTRODUCTION
Linear spectral mixture modeling (LSMM) has devel-
oped in recent years as a suitable tool to extract land-
cover information at a subpixel level. This procedure di-
vides each ground resolution element into its constituent
materials using endmembers which represent the spec-
tral characteristics of the cover types. When applied to
multispectral satellite data, the result is a series of images
* Departament de Termodinamica, Facultat de Fsica, Universitat
de Valencia, Burjassot, Valencia, Spain
Address correspondence to M. Amparo Gilabert, Departament de
Termodinamica, Facultat de Fsica, Dr. Moliner, 50, 46100-Burjassot,
Valencia, Spain. E-mail: M.Amparo.Gilabert@uv.es
Received 2 May 1999; revised 17 November 1999.
REMOTE SENS. ENVIRON. 72:328345 (2000)
Elsevier Science Inc., 2000
655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
each depicting the fraction or abundance of a cover type.
It has been successfully used in geological applications
(Adams et al., 1986; Thomson and Salisbury, 1993), cli-
matological studies (Rambal et al., 1990), and vegetation
studies (Smith et al., 1990). Nevertheless, linear reflec-
tance models are limited to reproduce the mixing behav-
ior of natural ground surfaces due to the multiple scat-
tering of radiation with canopy elements, as has been
observed by different authors (Roberts et al., 1993;
Garca-Haro et al., 1996). In fact, energy leaving the can-
opy surface is a nonlinear function of the optical proper-
ties of leaves and soil, as was demonstrated by Borel and
Gerstl (1994). For example, Huete et al. (1985) found
significant changes in the greenness of vegetation at
varying the brightness of soil background. Ray and Mur-
ray (1996) showed a significant multiple scattering within
shrub canopies that resulted in significant nonlinear mix-
ing. Other important weakness of the LSMM is that veg-
etation fraction maps are not the final output, but they
should be interpreted in terms of ecological variables,
such as ground vegetation cover or leaf area index (LAI).
The relationship between vegetation fraction and
ground variables is not still well understood, and also de-
pends on local scene characteristics (Garca-Haro, 1997).
Thus more research towards a standardized and opera-
tional implementation of a mixture modeling system suit-
able for long-term monitoring is required. This can only
be achieved by means of simulation studies or well-con-
trolled experiments over a wide range of different eco-
systems. Furthermore, the current development of satel-
lite technology provides improved spatial and spectral
resolution of remote sensing data, which requires their
careful interpretation with the aid of reflectance models
describing the complex process of the radiative transfer
within the canopy.
Nevertheless, the inclusion of multiple scattering is
0034-4257/00/$see front matter
PII S0034-4257(99)00109-1
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters 329

one of the most complex tasks in the development of a

model to describe the canopy radiative regime. In fact,
nonlinear effects are scale-dependent, that is, canopy
spectra mixing with a soil background tends to a more
linear case of mixing, whereas leaf spectra within a can-
opy are more nonlinear. Moreover, unlike homogeneous
canopies, heterogeneous canopies have received little at-
tention in the literature due to their complexity. An addi-
tional question to be solved is the inverse problem of de-
termining vegetation structural and optical parameters
with a minimum computer time. For example, given six
TM channels, it is not possible to solve for a large num-
ber of unknowns without some a priori knowledge.
In this article we have addressed the problem of
compensating for errors due to multiple scattering in
vegetation canopies that lead to nonlinear mixing. First,
we have developed an empirical model that describes na-
dir reflectance behavior of multispectral images in het-
erogeneous canopies. This model parametrizes the re-
flectance of vegetation canopies from optical properties
of leaves and soil, and canopy structural parameters. The
model was intended for retrieving meaningful biophysi-
cal properties (e.g., LAI and vegetation fraction) from
spectral mixtures in presence of significant multiple scat-
tering. The feasibility of the model inversion has been
checked using multispectral data derived from a radiosity
canopy reflectance model (Garca-Haro et al., 1999).
These artificial data have enabled us to examine and con-
trol the processes that govern the canopy reflectance,
gain a deep insight into the model parameters, and pro-
pose further refinements to the model. In addition, this Figure 1. A) Representation of the canopy model. Each in-
dividual plant is idealized by means of a porous cylinder
modeling frame has also served to check the reliability of constituted by n layers of leaves, each layer characterized
LSMM estimates, evaluating the critical role of the vegeta- by its radius (R), LAI, and LAD, and separated by a dis-
tion endmember. LSMM outcomes were also compared tance (d). Optical parameters are leaf transmittance (s)
with the results provided by the proposed approach. and reflectance (q), and soil reflectance (qs). B) Leaf (i.e.,
q) and soil (i.e., qs) reflectance spectra (in %) obtained by
means of field radiometry. In this study, sq has been
DESCRIPTION OF THE SIMULATION MODEL assumed.

In this section, we describe the inputs introduced to the

radiosity model to generate multispectral images. The ra-
diosity model has been successfully applied in the litera-
ture on different 3-D canopy structures (Borel et al.,
1991; Goel et al., 1991). Garca-Haro et al. (1999) devel-
oped a radiosity model to compute bidirectional reflec-
tance from a heterogeneous canopy approximated by an
arbitrary configuration of identical plants or clumps of
vegetation, placed on the ground surface in a prescribed
manner. It explicitly computes solar radiation leaving
each individual surface, taking into account multiple scat-
tering and transmission processes between leaves and
soil, and occlusion of neighboring plants. This modeling
approach has shown to be a valuable and realistic ap-
proximation of satellite data. The main strength of the
model comes from the characterization of the spectral
behavior of canopies uniquely from a reduced number
of dominant parameters. This enables us to investigate
the capability of airborne or space-borne data for hetero-
geneous vegetated land covers, first with forward simula-
tions applied to large areas at appropriate spatial resolu-
tions and second with inversion techniques. We now
describe the inputs introduced to the radiosity model to
generate multispectral images.
Each individual plant is idealized by means of a po-
rous cylinder formed by a stack of n opposing circular
layers (i.e., disks of radius R) of leaves (see Fig. 1A).
Each layer, consisting of randomly arranged leaves, is
characterized by its leaf area index (LAI) and its leaf
angle distribution (LAD). The leaves are assumed not to
overlap each other, so that LAI of each individual layer
ranges from 0 to 1. We have employed the bidirectional
reflectance factor (BRF) to describe the behavior of nat-
ural surfaces since this is the magnitude most frequently
employed in radiometry. Though this is a hemispherical-
330 Gilabert et al.
directional reflectance factor, in this work it will be
termed reflectance for brevity. Thus optical parameters
include leaf reflectance (q) and transmittance (s), and
soil reflectance (qs). Other plant parameters are trunk
height (h) and crown height (H). In addition to canopy
parameters, the model requires the knowledge of scene
parameters such as atmospheric conditions and sun/view
angles in order to assess the spectral distribution of in-
coming irradiance from a model of atmosphere. The
fraction of diffuse irradiance is parametrized by means
of the turbidity factor b (Iqbal, 1983) and the sun zenith
angle hs.
The scene is a rectangular matrix cell formed by the
juxtaposition of squared, identical cells of side 2R. It is
also assumed that plants and cells centers coincide. The
shape of plants is specified by a unique variable: its simi-
larity parameter b, defined as the height-to-width ratio
(Jasinski and Eagleson, 1990). For example in our case
of cylindrical plants we have b2R/H. In order to reduce
the computations, multiple scattering processes of distant
elements (i.e., belonging to plants situated at a distance
farther than three times the crown diameter) are ne-
glected. In addition, R, H, n, LAI, and LAD are assumed
constant for all plants within the scene.
Selected Inputs
Several model inputs have been fixed in this study for
conciseness. For example, we have adopted an acquisi-
tion geometry characterized by a solar zenith hs, equal to
30, solar azimuth us, equal to 30 (0south; eastposi- scattering between leaves and soil. These processes vary
tive), nadir view, atmospheric conditions typical of a very
transparent day (i.e., turbidity factor b equal to 0.02),
trunk height h equal to crown radius R, spectral signa-
tures of leaves and soil (quaternary) as shown in Figure
1B, and a random spatial distribution of plants. Without
loss of generality, we have set R1m.
For the rest of model parameters, the following in-
puts have been considered:
Pixel size was varied from 6 m to 16 m.
Two different values of the crown height: i)
H2R, that is, b1, characteristic of plants with
horizontal structure (bushlike) and ii) H5R,
that is, b0.4, which could correspond to cylin-
drical trees presenting a higher contribution of
shadows. In both cases, the trunk height (h) con-
sidered was 1m.
Two different number of layers: n10 (corre-
sponding to a spatial distribution of leaves inside
the canopy relatively laminar or stratified), and
n20 (i.e., a more compact spatial distribution
of leaves).
LAI of plants was varied from 0.5 to 7.
Three different types of LADs, with azimuthal
symmetry and different degrees of leaf inclina-
tion, characterized by the distribution of the leaf
zenith angle hL: i) horizontal leaves, that is,
hLp/2, ii) spherical LAD, that is, hL being a co-
sine distribution in the interval [0, p], and iii) an
intermediate case of predominantly horizontal
leaves, hL being a cosine distribution in the inter-
val [p/4, 3p/4].
The six spectral regions corresponding to the op-
tical wavebands of Landsat Thematic Mapper
(TM), since this sensor is well suited to vegeta-
tion monitoring (Buttner and Csillag, 1989; Rip-
ple et al., 1991). The visible region (TM1, TM2,
and TM3) is dominated by the effect of chloro-
phyll absorption, particularly in the blue (TM1)
and red (TM3). The near infrared region (TM4)
is characterized by low absorption and high scat-
tering of radiation on the intercellular walls of
the leaf issue. In the mid-infrared region (TM5
and TM7), scattering is still high, and in addi-
tion the absorption of radiation by water inside
the plant is very significant (Rosema et al.,
1992). For a summary of leaf optical properties,
refer to classic references by Gates et al. (1965)
and Woolley (1971).
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED
REFLECTANCE MODEL
Canopy reflectance is governed by processes such as ra-
diation interception by leaves, transmission, and multiple
depending on a large number of interrelated factors, ba-
sically spectral region, LAI, LAD, shape, and dimensions
of plant and scene parameters (Suits, 1972; Bunnik,
1978; Goel, 1988; Garca-Haro et al., 1999). In this arti-
cle, we have developed an empirical model that de-
scribes the nadir reflectance behavior of multispectral
images of heterogeneous canopies. In future work, the
model will be generalized to accommodate angular data.
Recent work has demonstrated that horizontal mixing of
vegetation types or materials (e.g., shrub canopies, grass
canopies, and bare soils) is primarily a linear process at
landscape scales, when endmembers are whole canopy
spectra (Roberts et al., 1993). A similar result was found
by other authors (Asner, 1998; Asner et al., 1998), but,
within a canopy (e.g., grassland), the reflectance is more
nonlinear. Moreover, when a lot of intercanopy shading
occurs, and when the cover types cooccur at high spatial
density (e.g., shrublands with many small gaps between
the shrubs), the nonlinear mixing dominates. In fact,
while horizontal extent of covers can be adequately de-
termined from a linear mixing perspective, the interac-
tions of photons with vegetation components in vertical
space is known to be highly nonlinear (Myneni et al.,
1989; Borel and Gerstl, 1994; Asner, 1998).
The proposed model identifies three macroscopic
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
components within the scene: vegetation (v), shaded soil
(ss), and illuminated soil (is). We have first made the as-
sumption that these whole components mix linearly. Ac-
cording to the linear reflectance model, pixel reflectance
R(k) is expressed as the summation of the reflectances
from all components each multiplied by its relative frac-
tional cover:
R(k)fvRv(k)fisRis(k)fssRss(k). (1)
It should be noted that shaded soil (ss) refers to shadow
cast by the canopy. Thus the model neglects shading by
topography and illumination. Hence it will incorrectly
model the effects of changes in surface slope, aspect, and
the effects of surface roughness. Furthermore, the model
does not account for nonphotosynthetic vegetation (NPV),
that is, plant material lacking chlorophyll (branches,
woody stems, and standing litter), which is a critical
weakness in most arid vegetation and many forests. Al-
though only a few studies have addressed the importance
of NPV in canopy reflectance data (e.g., Van Leeuwen
and Huete, 1996; Huemmrich and Goward, 1997), NPV
comprises a substantial portion of the canopy in many
ecosystems such as grasslands, shrublands, savannas, and
dry woodlands (Asner, 1998). The importance of NPV
has been demonstrated in an analysis of AVIRIS images
of Jasper Ridge, California (Roberts et al., 1993). NPV
spectrum mimics that of the soil. Since the proposed
modeling approach neglects the NPV, its spectral re-
sponse is partitioned as a mixture of soil with minor
quantities of green vegetation and shaded soil (Roberts
et al., 1993). One way to deal with these sources of error
could be the inclusion of endmembers for dry materials
or shade in Eq. (1).
Within each of the three components of the Eq. (1)
mixtures are more nonlinear (e.g., leaf spectra within a
canopy). In the three following subsections we have
modeled the spectra of the tree components of Eq. (1),
and evaluated their invertibility. For the spectra of the
components we have proposed relatively simplistic geo-
metric models that address some dominant nonlinear ef-
fects, for example, plant reflectance is a nonlinear func-
tion of the optical properties of leaves and soil. Model
biophysical parameters include some meaningful proper-
ties (vegetation cover, LAI) that might be retrieved by
inversion strategies. Finally, in the next section we have
attempted to incorporate into the model intercanopy
shading and multiple scattering between plants, which
are responsible for nonlinear mixing. To model these ef-
fects, it is necessary to assume that the spectra of the
components do not mix linearly as in Eq. (1), but depend
also on the subpixel composition, for example, the spec-
tra of plants can vary due to the presence of neighboring
plants (i.e., Rv varies with fv).
Reflectance of Individual Plants
LAI and LAD are the dominant controls on canopy re-
flectance with the exception of soil reflectance and vege-
331
tation cover in sparse canopies (Asner, 1998). In general,
interaction of NIR radiation with successive leaf layers
results in a positive correlation with LAI due to the high
amount of radiative fluxes scattered in this region by leaf
material, especially at the top layers. In the rest of spec-
tral regions the relationship between reflectance and LAI
is generally negative, basically due to the fact that most
of the soil irradiance is intercepted by leaves, which have
lower reflectance values than soil background. Neverthe-
less, the sensitivity of plant reflectance to LAI becomes
increasingly weak with increasing LAI beyond a thresh-
old value. This saturating effect has been widely reported
in the literature in many experimental studies.
Curran (1983) showed that the asymptotic regime is
reached at LAI values of around 34 for short crops as
wheat, corn, sorghum, and various grasses. Many experi-
mental studies have fitted spectral data to the exponen-
tial relationship, achieving good correlations (Peterson et
al., 1987; Price and Bausch, 1995; Gilabert et al., 1996).
Research on agricultural monocultures (Asrar et al.,
1984; Bauer, 1985) has shown that a strong positive rela-
tionship exists between combinations of red to NIR re-
flectance and total biomass and LAI. Inverse asymptotic
relationships have been observed between red reflec-
tance and LAI that tend to saturate at LAI values of
about 23. Similar results have been demonstrated for
natural communities such as wet and dry biomass of
mixed herbaceous species (Tucker et al., 1985). A similar
physical dependence has also been established by several
authors through different canopy reflectance models
(Clevers, 1988; Baret, 1991; Price, 1992; Borel and
Gerstl, 1994). However, the relationship between LAI
and remotely sensed response is less well known in forest
canopies (Holben and Justice, 1980; Sellers, 1987; Pe-
terson et al., 1987; Danson, 1995; Hall et al., 1995). For
example, Spanner et al. (1990) related spectral data to
the LAI of 73 stands across a large area in the western
United States. They found a negative relationship be-
tween red reflectance and LAI, which reached an asymp-
tote at an LAI of around 45, but no relationship was
found in the near-infrared region. A similar result was
obtained by Peterson et al. (1987) analyzing 18 conifer-
ous forest stand with a range of projected LAI of 0.616,
but in this case LAI approached to its asymptotic at
higher LAI values of approximately 8.
Nevertheless, the multispectral reflectance proper-
ties of plant canopies are not a simple function of LAI
but are known to be affected by a wide range of biophys-
ical, biochemical, and structural variables, including can-
opy variables and community variables. For example, the
increase of leaf inclination is generally associated with
decreased effective LAI of plants, i.e., a shift of the LAI
of saturation reflectance towards higher LAI values
(Garca-Haro et al., 1999). The structural properties of
canopies that determine the interception and reflection
of solar radiation are, in order of importance (Jarvis and
332 Gilabert et al.
Leverenz, 1984), a) LAI, b) vertical distribution of fo-
liage, c) distribution of leaf inclination angles, d) leaf re-
flectance, transmittance, and scattering properties, e)
grouping or clumpiness of the foliage, and f) the distri-
bution of leaf azimuthal angles. In this study factors
a)d) will be modeled. The variations induced by domi-
nant canopy structural parameters, that is, factors a)d),
have been now incorporated into an empirical reflec-
tance model of plant reflectance, Rv(k). Factors e) and
f), while potentially important within the canopy, were
not addressed in this study.
The model is based on relatively simplistic canopy ge-
ometric models, neglects the effects of surface roughness
and topography, and does not account for nonphotosyn-
thetic components within the canopy. The model assumes
that the LAI of plant needed to reach the saturation re-
flectance is a function of a parameter C which is practi-
cally independent of wavelength and, therefore, of leaf
optical properties. The expression of the model is the fol-
lowing:
Rv(k)R(k)[qs(k)R(k)]exp(CLAI), (2)
where:
qs(k) is the soil reflectance.
R(k) is the saturation reflectance. Since we
have assumed that this reflectance is indepen-
dent of LAI, it is the asymptotic value of plant
reflectance at large LAI.
C is a parameter that describes the capacity of
plant elements to intercept radiant flux.
To provide an enhanced understanding to Eq. (2), we
will express the reflectance of a plant as mixed spectrum
of exposed soil (s) and exposed canopy (c) spectra:
Rvfcqcfsqs , (3)
where fc and fs are the fractions of exposed soil and ex-
posed canopy, respectively. If we consider that the frac-
tions sum to 1 within the plant, it follows that
Rv(1fs)qcfsqs . (4)
As we can see, Eq. (4) has the same form as Eq. (2),
where qcR and fsexp(CLAI). What this equation where Aa and B1x. Thus, we can relate parameter
tells us is that the fraction of exposed soil within a plant
decreases exponentially as a function of a weighting pa-
rameter C (which varies with sun angle and architecture)
and LAI. It should be noted that parameter C assumes
complete absorption when photons strike an element
(i.e., it is a blocking factor), and thus does not vary with
wavelength. If we had considered C as an extinction or
attenuation coefficient, it would have varied with wave-
length.
The model parametrizes the saturation reflectance,
R(k) as a power of leaf reflectance qv(k) and leaf trans-
mittance s(k). Although reflectance and transmittance
are not equal in many plants and vary greatly between
species, in this study we have assumed for simplicity that
reflectance and transmittance are similar. This assump-
tion is accepted for many thin leaved grass and broad-
leaved deciduous species (Gates et al., 1965; Woolley,
1971). Hence R(k) is expressed by the formula
R(k)A[qv(k)]B , (5)
where A and B are parameters well related to plant
structural characteristics. In order to provide some theo-
retical support to Eq. (5), we will assume the example
of canopy model considered by Borel and Gerstl, (1994),
formed by a large number of infinite layers of uniformly
distributed horizontal leaves. Leaf area index of the lay-
ers, L, and leaf optical properties, qv and s, are assumed
constant. It is easy to see that the contributions of the
first and second order scattering (i.e., photons that only
interact with one and two leaves, respectively) to the
overall reflectance are given by Eq. (6):
1
R(order1)Lqv(1(1L)2(1L)4)qv ,
(2L)
2L(1L)
R(order2)qvs . (6)
(2L)
Assuming that qvs, the reflectance can be parametrized
a power series in qv:
Raqv(1bq2vcq3v), (7)
where the coefficients a, b, c, etc. are decreasing positive
functions of the structural parameters (in this case, L)
that quantify the contribution of the different orders of
multiple scattering to overall reflectance. In a more real-
istic model of canopy (finite plant dimensions, inclined
leaves, etc.), the estimation of these coefficients would
be unaffordable due to its complexity. Equation (5) con-
stitutes a simplistic approach that retrieves useful infor-
mation about canopy architecture by means of parame-
ters A and B.
In order to compare Eqs. (5) and (7), we will assume
that the power series in brackets of Eq. (7) can be ex-
pressed as a power of leaf reflectance, that is, qxv (with
x0). In this case both equations have the same form,
A with the contribution of the first order scattering to
the overall reflectance. This contribution is basically dic-
tated by the capability of the upper layers to intercept
incoming solar radiation. Otherwise, since multiple scat-
tering between leaves may be mathematically expressed
as a power of leaf reflectance and transmittance, large
values of parameter B are also indicative of an important
contribution of high order multiple scattering. In a sim-
plistic interpretation, B expresses the average or effective
number of scattering processes of light with leaf material
across the canopy. Nevertheless, the interpretation of pa-
rameters A and B is more complex since both parameters
are highly correlated. For example, high values of B cor-
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
Table 1. Values of Parameters A, B, C Obtained in the Fit
of the Plant Reflectance Model [Eqs. (1) and (2)], Jointly
with the RMS of the Residuala
Estimated Parameters
b LAD A B C RMS
1 Spherical 1.19 1.31 0.76 0.0088
Predom. horiz. 1.41 1.33 0.95 0.0072
Horizontal 1.52 1.34 1.00 0.0076
0.4 Spherical 0.90 1.18 0.68 0.0023
Predom. horiz. 1.10 1.18 0.91 0.0026
Horizontal 1.19 1.19 1.00 0.0040
a
Results correspond to plants with a compact architecture (20 layers)
and different structural parameters.
respond to high contribution of multiple scattering of ra-
diation with foliage elements, which should be enclosed
by a high saturation reflectance. However, an increase of
parameter B causes a diminution of R(k) and, therefore,
it should be compensated by an increase of parameter A
(i.e., positive correlation between A and B).
Equation (5) neglects the fact that soil reflectance
can have a major impact on canopy reflectance even at
closed canopy, that is, when there is no sunlit or shaded
soil that can be observed. Although the contribution of
soil background at 100% canopy closure only corre-
sponds to third and higher order scattering of radiation
(i.e., photons that are transmitted by leaves, then re-
flected by soil, and finally arrive at the sensor after being
scattered again by leaf material), Huete et al. (1985)
demonstrated with real measurements that canopy re-
flectance is still quite sensitive to this effect. Future work
will be devoted to address this effect, for example, in-
cluding in Eq. (5) a factor that has a dependence with
soil reflectance (qs) which should vanish for asymptotic
values of LAI.
In this study, a nonlinear minimization procedure
was used to fit the model to the data and thereby esti-
mate all the model parameters, or some of the parame-
ters if the rest are known. The fitting procedure used to
estimate parameters was based on the MIGRAD algo-
rithm (Minuit, 1992), since it showed to be more accu-
rate than other numerical procedures like SIMPLEX
(Minuit, 1992). MIGRAD is a variable metric method
with inexact line search, a stable metric updating
scheme, and checks for the positive-definiteness of the
covariance matrix, which is guaranteed by adding an ap-
propriate constant along the diagonal. The main weak-
ness of the algorithm is that it fails if the first derivatives
are very inaccurate. When the acceptability of the solu-
tions required the use of constraints (e.g., to constraint
the fractions to be positive), appropriate penalty terms
have been added to the objective function.
In this first example, we consider the case where A,
B, and C are solved from modeled spectra with known
LAI. Table 1 shows the values of parameters A, B, and
333
C, jointly with the root mean square (RMS) of the resid-
ual, that is, the difference between the reflectance of an
individual plant (as derived by the radiosity model) and
the reflectance predicted by the described model. Re-
sults correspond to the case of plants with a compact ar-
chitecture (20 layers of leaves). We can observe that the
RMS of the residual is very low, especially when b0.4,
which reveals a close agreement of the proposed model.
Results obtained for more stratified plants (e.g., with
only 10 layers of leaves) for parameters A, B, and C did
not change significantly. This seems to indicate that leaf
spatial distribution has a minor influence on plant reflec-
tance, as it was found by Garca-Haro et al. (1999).
Therefore, in the rest of this study the number of layers
has been set to a fixed value of 20.
The values obtained for parameters A, B, and C con-
firm their initial interpretation. For example, C is greater
for plants with horizontal leaves due to their higher
opacity, that causes a saturation of reflectance at lower
LAI values. Furthermore, A and B present higher values
for b1, as the distance between layers increases (and
hence the contribution of multiple scattering), an effect
that is more pronounced when leaves are horizontal. We
can also observe that A is significantly higher for hori-
zontal leaves, since they are more effective in terms of
solar direct radiation interception. Otherwise, B is rather
insensitive to leaves inclination. Finally, C increases with
leaves inclination and is rather insensitive to the value of b.
Figure 2 shows the variation of plant reflectance as
a function of the LAI of plants, jointly with the curves
provided by the proposed model [Eqs. (1) and (2)]. It
confirms the existence of a good model fit to the data.
Nevertheless, we can observe a noticeable modeling er-
ror in the TM4, especially for b1, probably due to that
the model might neglect somewhat the role of multiple
scattering of NIR within the canopy. We should also
note that infinite reflectance saturates at LAI values typi-
cally around 4, when the exponential term becomes small
enough so that little if no change in canopy reflectance
occurs. Saturation at similarly small LAI values is found
in crop, grasses, and natural communities of mixed her-
baceous species. However, forest canopies generally satu-
rate at higher LAI values of around 68. Consequently,
values obtained for parameter C are not representative
of forest canopies. This also suggests that the model will
probably be more limited to deal with forest canopies.
Inversion of the Model
We have now analyzed the invertibility of the model to
estimate the LAI of plants. Parameters A, B, and C were
kept fixed (knowns) and LAI was inverted as a free pa-
rameter. In the first example we considered values for A,
B, and C solved by a nonlinear minimization technique
undertaken on plants with identical structural parameters
(reported in Table 1). The inversion provided extremely
accurate estimates of LAI irrespectively of the different
334 Gilabert et al.
LADs and similarity parameters of plants, even for dense
canopies (i.e., LAI5).
We next used an identical set of values for parame-
ters A, B, and C in the LAI inversion for plants present-
ing a range of structural parameters. This example (i.e.,
parameters are assumed uniform between different
plants) corresponds to a more unfavorable case, although
more tractable in real satellite scenes. The set of values
was solved in a similar fashion but now the minimization
scheme was undertaken on plants with different LADs
and similarity parameters. The following values were ob-
tained: A1.21, B1.25, and C0.884. In this case a
higher RMS value (0.020) reveals a poorer fit of the
model, although it is still acceptably good. However, the
inversion of LAI provided a bias of estimated LAI over
25% for intermediate or dense plants (i.e., LAI3). For
example, LAI was overestimated for plants with hori-
zontal leaves, while it was underestimated for plants with
spherical LAD. One possible solution of the problem
consists in finding a functional dependence between
plant structural parameters and LAD. To achieve this
goal, it was necessary to model the influence of two ef-
fects:
1. The greater the leaves inclination, the lower the
plant opacity and, therefore, the lower its effec-
tive LAI (i.e., saturation is reached for higher
LAI values). For example, in the simplest case of
a unique layer of leaves, the effective LAI
(namely, LAIeff) would be equal to the projection
of the leaves in the direction perpendicular to the
sensor. In general, we may assume that the LAIeff
of a plant is equal to a constant multiplied by a
decreasing function of leaves inclination. We
adopted a sinusoidal dependence, due to its sim-
plicity and the good performance achieved [Eqs.
(8) and (9)]:
LAIeffLAIgL , (8)
gLcos hL , (9)
where || represents the modulus and is an
average over the angular distribution function.
Thus we have parametrized the dependence of co-
Figure 2. Values of plant reflectance derived by the ra-
diosity model in four different spectral regions: TM3(),
TM4 (), TM5 (), and TM7 (), jointly with the val-
ues predicted by the proposed model, that is, Eqs. (1)
and (2) (discontinuous line), for plants with horizontal
leaves and different values of LAI and similarity parame-
ter b. Note: TM3 band: 0.630.69 lm; TM4 band: 0.76
0.90 lm; TM5 band: 1.551.75 lm; TM7 band: 2.08
2.35 lm.
efficient C with LAD by replacing LAI by LAIeff
in Eq. (1).
2. The reflectance of saturation, R(k), is positively
correlated with leaf transmittance, and negatively
correlated with the average inclination of leaves.
In order to model this effect we have introduced
a factor in Eq. (2):
R(k)AgL[qv(k)]B . (10)
The different parameters were computed by means of a
model fit, obtaining the following values:
a. A1.58; B1.35; C0.96; RMS0.015 (for
b1),
b. A1.22; B1.20; C0.99; RMS0.008 (for
b0.4).
RMS values reveal a significant improvement of the
model performance. Furthermore, the inversion of the
model lets us estimate simultaneously LAI and |hL|
with reasonably high accuracy. For example, the error of
estimated LAI was under 5% even for intermediate and
higher values of LAI. Similarly, except for low values of
LAI, the error of estimated |hL| was small, typically
below 5.
Reflectance of Shaded Soil
Soil reflectance is altered by the presence of surrounding
plants, due to three main effects (Garca-Haro et al.,
1999):
i. The decrease of sun direct radiation, due to the
presence of leaves in the direct line of sight be-
tween soil surface and sun.
ii. The decrease of skylight radiation, due to its in-
terception by leaves of neighboring plants.
iii. The increase of side scattered diffuse radiation in-
cident on surface after multiple scattering with
leaves of neighboring plants. Field measurements
and other radiosity models (Curtiss and Ustin,
1988; Roberts et al., 1990a; Borel and Gerst,
1994; Roberts et al., 1995; Ray and Murray,
1996) all show that the side scattered light can
be very significant. For example, Roberts et al.
(1990a) showed an increase in over 20% in soil
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
reflectance adjacent to a horizontal leaf placed
over a white background.
Effect i has generally a dominant contribution, caus-
ing a decrease in apparent soil reflectance. Otherwise,
effect ii greatly increases with atmospheric turbidity,
while effect iii is more significant in the NIR. Neverthe-
less, the relative influence of these effects depends on
the spatial distribution, density, and structural parame-
ters of plants.
Neglecting the presence of diffuse radiation (i.e., ab-
sence of transmission of leaves and dispersion of atmo-
sphere), the projection of (black) shadow cast by a single
layer L of leaves on soil background is proportional to
the leaf area index or porosity of the layer, LAIL; that is,
in a horizontal average sense, a fraction LAIL of the radi-
ation incident upon the layer of leaves will be inter-
cepted by it, and therefore each intermediate layer is
transparent with a fraction (1LAIL). Nevertheless, the
shadow cast by an entire plant is a complex function of
many variables including among others plant architec-
ture, LAI, LAD, leaf optical properties, scene geometry,
or atmospheric conditions. In fact, shadow is not uniform
(e.g., it is less dark in the borders).
Our model does not take into account all these ef-
fects, but only the most significant ones. It assumes that
a plant is transparent with a fraction (1LAIL) elevated
to a parameter j which is termed opacity factor. This
parameter represents the average number of layers that
project shadow on the soil, that is, the degree of opacity
of the canopy or the darkness of the shadow. In gen-
eral, it is expected that horizontal leaves are more effi-
cient in terms of radiation interception. Furthermore,
canopies with large separation between layers will have
also a lower opacity. Based on leaf optical properties and
measurements of diffuse scattering in canopies, it can be
shown that shadow varies spectrally preserving some fea-
tures contained in leaf transmittance.
Thus the reflectance of partially shaded soil, Rss(k),
was parametrized as the reflectance of illuminated soil
[qs(k)] multiplied by its relative area fi, plus the reflec-
tance of shaded soil multiplied by its relative area (1fi):
Rss(k)qs(k)[fi(1fi)(1LAIL)jsk], (11) We then analyzed the variation of fi and j with plant
where:
LAIL is a parameter in the range [0, 1] that is a
function of the LAI of each individual layer of
leaves, for example, LAILLAI/n.
j is a parameter which is termed opacity factor.
k is a positive parameter related to architecture.
The term sk models shadow wavelength varia-
tions due to transmission of radiation through
leaves.
Equation (11) expresses that shaded soil reflectance
is reduced by a shadow factor, (1LAIL)jsk, which is pro-
335
Table 2. Values of Parameters fi and j Obtained in the Fit
of the Model [Eq. (9)], for the Case of a Soil Surface
Partially Shaded by a Single Plant, Jointly with the RMS
of the Residuala
Estimated Parameters
b LAD fi j RMS
1 Spherical 0.79 5.0 0.0021
Predom. horiz. 0.78 6.0 0.0025
Horizontal 0.78 6.5 0.0026
0.4 Spherical 0.66 3.2 0.0027
Predom. horiz. 0.65 4.2 0.0028
Horizontal 0.64 4.7 0.0029
a
Results correspond to plants with different structural parameters.
portional to leaf transmittance and inversely proportional
to both density of leaves and opacity of plants. The first
term, (1LAIL)j, is a pure geometric or blocking factor
(which varies with sun angle and architecture), related to
the probability of complete absorption of incoming radia-
tion by the canopy. The second term, sk, is related to the
degree of attenuation of radiation through canopy, which
varies across wavelength due to the optical properties of
the leaves. This model does not take into account side
scattered radiation, which can be significant in NIR.
Moreover, in order to simplify the model, the shadow
factor was assumed to be independent across wave-
lengths (i.e., k0). Hence the model only parametrizes
the blocking effects, neglecting the attenuation of light
inside the canopy. Although this assumption is very sim-
plistic, and brings about significant errors in NIR reflec-
tance, it is justifiable due to its small influence on re-
trieving biophysical properties such as the LAI of the
plants, as is noted in the next subsection. Future work
is required to address the effects of the attenuation of
light on real canopies, and also the spatial variation of
shadow. These effects are highly nonlinear and depend
on the scale.
To evaluate this model, we considered a soil surface
and different configurations with several plants around it.
Results showed that an increase in the number of neigh-
boring plants produced an overall diminution on soil re-
flectance that is similar to a decrease of fi in Eq. (11).
structural parameters. Table 2 shows the results obtained
from a soil surface partially shaded by a single neigh-
boring plant.
Results reveal the good performance of the fit and
confirm the initial interpretation of parameters fi and j.
In fact, fi is practically insensitive to LAD, but it varies
with the value of b, since the proportion of shaded soil
is well related to crown height. Otherwise, j diminishes
at increasing the amount of radiation received by soil.
Thus j is inversely correlated with both average inclina-
tion of leaves and height of crown. This confirms the ini-
tial interpretation of j as an opacity factor, for example,
336 Gilabert et al.
higher opacity values for plants with more compact ar-
chitecture and horizontal leaves. Figure 3 shows the vari-
ation of shaded soil reflectance with the LAI of plants,
along with the values obtained using the proposed pa-
rameterization (discontinuous line).
We observed that LAI, b, and (although not shown
in Fig. 3) LAD of plants have a considerable influence
on shaded soil reflectance. We also observed that al-
though effect i, that is, the shadow cast by the plant, has
the highest influence, effect iii, that is, the increase of
multiple scattering radiation received by soil from neigh-
boring plants, is also significant in the NIR. Modeling
errors in TM4 (e.g., an underestimation over 0.01 is ob-
served for LAI5) are in part due to this side scattering
diffuse NIR radiation. They are also due to the model
assumption that canopy opacity is uniform across wave-
lengths. Modeling errors in TM4 reflectance were signif-
icantly reduced when introducing the dependence in leaf
transmittance in Eq. (11), that is, considering k as a non-
zero free parameter. A value of k1.3 was obtained in
the minimization procedure.
Inversion of the Model
We first analyzed the invertibility of the model to esti-
mate canopy parameters in a simple case, when LAI is
the unique free parameter (i.e., b and LAD are known),
finding that the model allows for accurate estimates of
LAI, even for dense canopies (e.g., when LAI5). We
next considered the case of unknown LAD (i.e., assum-
ing that parameters fi and j do not depend on LAD).
We obtained the following parameters:
a. fi0.79; j5.9; RMS0.0062 (for b1). diosity simulation model) of the surrounding soil corre-
b. fi0.65; j4.1; RMS0.0082 (for b0.4). sponding to three adjacent soil cells. Results showed that
In this case, although the agreement between the
original and modeled values was still reasonably good
(with the RMS of the residual below 0.01), the error of
estimated LAI was over 30% when the LAI of the plant
was intermediate or high (i.e., LAI3). For example,
LAI was overestimated in the case of horizontal leaves,
and underestimated in the case of spherical LAD. One
possible solution could consist in finding a functional de-
pendence between the opacity factor j and LAD (e.g.,
a sinusoidal function). Thus we replaced j by jgkL in Eq.
(11) [see Eq. (9)]. Results showed that, although this pa-
Figure 3. Reflectance of shaded soil cells in four dif-
ferent spectral regions: TM3(), TM4(), TM5(),
and TM7(), jointly with the values obtained by the
proposed model using the values of fi and j shown in
Table 2 (discontinuous line), for plants with spherical
LAD and different values of LAI and b.
rametrization provides a significant improvement of
model performance for k1.3 it does not ensure the si-
multaneous estimate of LAI and |hL|, since both pa-
rameters appear solely as multiplying factors. In addition,
the inclusion of transmittance in Eq. (11), that is, sk,
proved to be inconsequential to the inversion of the
model inasmuch as it did not significantly improve the
accuracy for retrieving LAI and |hL|.
Reflectance of Heterogeneous Canopies
Reflectances of plant (Rv) and shaded soil (Rss) have been
parametrized in Eqs. (2), (3), and (11). Otherwise, reflec-
tance of illuminated soil (Ris) increases as a consequence
of the radiation scattered from neighboring plants (i.e., ef-
fect iii, mentioned in the above section). We propose that
this increase is directly proportional to leaf transmittance
and leaf density according to the formula [Eq. (12)]:
Ris(k)qs(k)[1k1sLAILk2] , (12)
where k1 and k2 are constants. This equation has a similar
interpretation to Eq. (11). The amount of side scattered
light is quantified by the term, k1sLAILk2, which is a com-
bination of three factors: 1) LAILk2, related to the proba-
bility that incoming photons strike one or more foliage
elements; 2) leaf transmittance s; and 3) a geometric effi-
ciency factor, k1, related to the probability that down-
wards scattered photons reach the adjacent soil. Logi-
cally, k1 and k2 vary with sun angle and architecture,
although this variation is neglected in this study. In order
to quantify these constants, we considered different
plants and averaged the reflectance (provided by the ra-
side scattering light causes an increase in soil reflectance
over 5% in NIR, but it is significantly lower in the rest
of regions (Garca-Haro, 1997). An acceptable model fit
(RMS0.002) with k10.15 and k20.8 was found. In
order to simplify the model for heterogeneous canopies,
the contribution of this side scattering diffuse radiation
has been neglected [i.e., Ris(k)qs(k)]. Future refine-
ments of the model will incorporate this contribution, for
example, assuming an empirical relationship between the
vegetation cover and the area of soil affected by this
source of illumination.
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
We will denote by fs the fraction of soil (i.e.,
fsfisfss), and by fi the relative proportion of illuminated
soil (i.e., fifis/fs). Thus, by replacing Eq. (2) and (11) in
Eq. (1), we have Eq. (13):
R(k)fv[R(k)(qs(k)R(k))exp(CLAI)]
fsqs(k)[fi(1fi)(1LAIL)j]. (13)
Naturally the physical acceptability of the solutions im-
plies the accomplishment of the following constraints:
fvfs1, 0fv1, 0fi1. (14) plant reflectance is found even for plant 1, despite the
This parametrization constitutes an extension of the lin-
ear reflectance model for the case of heterogeneous can-
opies. In fact, when the LAI and the rest of plant struc-
tural parameters are fixed, both formulations are very
similar. However, the vegetation fraction (fv) as estimated
by the inversion of the described model provides a more
straightforward interpretation, since it coincides with the
vegetation cover.
This study has been centered on the estimate of fv
and LAI of plants by means of a nonlinear fit of Eq. (14)
using simulated data. Nevertheless, at observing this ex-
pression, we can realize the difficulty to simultaneously
estimate fv and other canopy structural parameters such
as LAI, since these variables are not entirely indepen-
dent (Carlson and Ripley, 1997). For example, the reflec-
tance of a bare soil surface may be modeled assuming
either a surface of bare soil (fs1), or a surface fully cov-
ered by plants (fv1) characterized by LAI0.
Influence of Neighboring Plants
Multiple scattering between plants generally causes an
overall increase in reflectance values of plants and soil,
specially when plants are dense (Garca-Haro, 1997).
This phenomenon has been previously noted in the liter-
ature (Huete, 1986; Roberts et al., 1990b; 1991; Borel
and Gerstl, 1994; Ray and Murray, 1996). However,
neighboring plants not only produce an increase of mul-
tiple scattering radiation incident on canopy elements,
but they might also intercept direct and skylight down-
ward radiation.
The interaction of photons with vegetation canopies
in the vertical space and the intercanopy shading cause
nonlinear mixing of vegetation. To gain an insight into
the complex nature of these processes, we have consid-
ered the configuration of plants shown in Figure 4A. It
consists of five plants situated in adjacent cells numbered
from 1 to 5. Code 6 corresponds to an isolated plant,
whose reflectance is used as a reference. We found that
in the NIR (TM4) plant reflectance varies significantly
due to the presence of neighboring plants in a fashion
which is highly dependent of plants structural character-
istics. This result can be observed in Figures 4B and 4C.
When LAI is intermediate or low (e.g., LAI3), the
decrease in TM4 plant reflectance due to neighboring
337
plants projecting shadow (characteristic of plants 1, 2,
and 4) generally prevails over the increase due to scatter-
ing radiation with elements of neighboring plants (char-
acteristic of plants 3 and 5, with absence of plants that
intercept sun direct radiation), particularly for spherical
LAD and b0.4 (Fig. 4C). Otherwise, when plants are
dense (e.g. LAI5), the net effect is to increase the
overall plant reflectance in TM4, due to the dominance
of the multiple scattering effect. For example, for plants
with horizontal leaves and b1 (Fig. 4B) an increase of
great amount of shadows cast by the rest of plants.
As previously noted, the effects of multiple scatter-
ing were most significant in TM4. In previous work
Garca-Haro found a much lower effect in the other TM
bands, dominating thus the mutual shadowing by other
plants. However, although this shadowing effect causes a
notable reduction of reflectance (over 15%) for dispersed
plants, this variation was not noticeable when LAI was
intermediate or high (i.e., LAI3). A detailed analysis
can be found in Garca-Haro (1997).
INVERSION OF THE MODEL FOR
VEGETATED SCENES
Although the proposed model reproduces the reflectance
of individual components, this does not necessarily en-
sure its invertibility in scenes composed by an arbitrary
configuration of plants. In fact, we cannot expect to de-
termine all the model parameters from a few measure-
ments of canopy reflectance in a small number of spec-
tral bands.
The model is well suited to crop plants, where leaves
dominate, soil reflectance is more uniform, topography
is minimal, and most crows can be modeled with simple
geometric shapes. Preliminary tests of the application of
the methodology to real Airborne Thematic Mapper
(ATM) showed a close agreement between estimated
vegetation fraction and ground vegetation coverage in al-
mond parcels (Garca-Haro, 1997). Gilabert et al. (1998)
also applied this method on real TM to monitor the spa-
tial distribution of vegetation patterns and assess the
temporal changes of shrub communities in a semiarid
environment. However, more validation work is neces-
sary to demonstrate that this modeling approach allows
for monitoring the spatial distribution of vegetation pat-
terns more accurately than LSMM at a satellite scale. In
this section we have analyzed the feasibility of the model
inversion to assess canopy parameters in simulated
scenes. Also, further improvements of the model are pro-
posed to reduce the error of estimated parameters by
taking into account scattering and mutual shadowing be-
tween neighboring plants.
Original Model
Given accurate knowledge of plants structural parame-
ters such as LAI, estimated fv values derived by the in-
338 Gilabert et al.
version of the proposed model should coincide with the
vegetation cover of plants presenting well-defined char-
acteristics. Hence the reliability of the inversion out-
comes may be assessed by comparing estimated fv against
actual vegetation cover of each pixel of simulated scenes.
Figure 5 shows the results corresponding to the two
cases which showed the highest deviation between esti-
mated fv and vegetation cover. For the rest of the cases,
systematic error of fv was considerably lower.
We can observe that though fv shows a good corre-
spondence with vegetation cover, it is a biased estimator,
especially when the density of plants is high. Logically
the main source of fv error is the incorrect modeling of
plant reflectance, while the inaccuracies of shaded soil
reflectance introduced by neighboring plants affect
mainly to fis and fss, but do not have significant influence
on fv. The highest bias is found for plants with horizontal
leaves and b1 (Fig. 5A). In this case fv overestimates
vegetation cover, especially when plants are dense and
vegetation fraction is maximum. This is attributable to
the net increase in plant apparent reflectance in TM4,
due to the multiple scattering radiation with neighboring
plants, which is most significant when the LAI of plant
is greater (see Fig. 4A). Otherwise, in the case of spheri-
cal LAD and b0.4 (Fig. 5B), a slight underestimate of
vegetation cover is observed, especially when the LAI of
plant is low. It is mainly due to the dominance of the
shadowing over multiple scattering effect, which is more
evident when plants are dispersed (see Fig. 4B).
The residuals (mathematical difference between ac-
tual and modeled fractional cover) let us evaluate numer-
ically the reliability of the estimates. In order to charac-
Figure 4. A) Location of plants coded from 1 to
5. Code 6 refers to an isolated plant. B) and C)
correspond to TM4 apparent reflectance of
plants coded from 1 to 6 (each situated in a con-
tiguous cell), for different plant structural pa-
rameters and values of their LAI: LAI1 (),
LAI3 (), LAI4 (), and LAI5 ().
terize residuals, we computed the mean (l), standard
deviation (r) and RMS of the residuals as a function of
the plant density. l is related to the bias of the fractions
(i.e., its modulus represents the systematic error of the
fractions), r represents its dispersion and the RMS rep-
resents its overall error (systematic plus statistic). Figure
6 shows the values of l and r of fv residuals versus vege-
tation cover, for the two cases of Figure 5. Positive bias
indicates that fv underestimates vegetation cover and
vice versa.
We can observe that statistical errors are remarkably
small (typically under 0.01). Moreover, as opposed to sys-
tematic errors, they are quite independent of plants
structural parameters and show only a slight variation
with vegetation cover. On the contrary, systematic errors
are considerably greater, and thus practically coincide
with the overall error. For example, fv is overestimated
by over 0.10 for horizontal leaves and b1 when plants
are dense and vegetation cover is maximum. Otherwise,
fv is generally underestimated for spherical LAD and
b0.4, particularly when plants are dispersed. Although
we do not show the results for brevity, the systematic
and statistical errors of fv proved to be quite independent
of the pixel size. Nevertheless, the systematic error was
slightly lower for smaller values of the pixel size, particu-
larly for plants with b1. This could be due to the in-
crease of spectral variability and the influence of neigh-
boring pixels at increasing the spatial resolution.
These errors could be due to limitations of the
model to address some nonlinear effects. In fact, the
model neglects 1) side scattered light on sunlit soils, 2)
variations of canopy opacity with the wavelength, and 3)
Figure 5. Estimated fv versus vegetation cover, for
16-m-size pixels corresponding to scenes with differ-
ent plant densities and plant structural parameters.
LAI values code: LAI1 (), LAI3 (), and
LAI5 ().
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
Figure 6. Values of bias (full symbols) and statistical
error (open symbols) of estimated fv versus vegetation
cover, for 16-m-size pixels corresponding to scenes
with LAI values of 1 (), 3 (), and 5 (). A)corre-
sponds to horizontal leaves and b1 and B to spheri-
cal LAD and b0.4.
soil brightness at 100% canopy closure. But the most sig-
nificant source of error could be due to interactions of
photons with vegetation components in vertical space, for
example, effects of neighboring plants and significant in-
tercanopy shading, which have a critical impact when the
cover types co-occur at high spatial density, as we pre-
viously noted (see Fig. 4). An attempt to model these
highly nonlinear effects is made in the following sub-
section.
Model Corrected for Neighboring Plant Effects
We have attempted to address the influence of the non-
linear effects due to the interaction of canopies at high
spatial density, in order to minimize the systematic errors
of fv. To model intercanopy shadowing, the spectra of
plants should vary due to the presence of neighboring
plants (i.e., Rv varies with fv). Thus we have modified the
model of plant reflectance [Eq. (2)] by introducing both
a positive and a negative term, that is,
v (k)Rv(k)[1aLAILbfvLAIL],
R(C) e e
(15)
where R(C)
v (k) is the plant reflectance considering the in-
fluence of neighboring plants, and a, b, e are positive
constants connected with plant architecture. For exam-
ple, a is related to the contribution of multiple scatter-
ing, whereas b is related with the contribution of shad-
owing effect (which is assumed to be proportional to fv).
A similar relationship (in this case with only a positive
term) could be used to account for the impact of side
light scattered on soil spectrum by neighboring plants.
LAI Is Perfectly Known
Equation (15) adds three additional parameters to a
model that is already complex. Considering that the total
number of unknowns have now exceeded the number of
TM bands, the ability to independently invert for each
of these parameters is questionable. Some a priori
knowledge is, therefore, necessary. We have now as-
sumed an accurate knowledge of plants LAI. Since pa-
rameters a, b, and e vary between plants with different
architecture, we have solved them for each case using
the minimization technique. The values of parameters a,
b, and e adopted for the two most problematic cases (the
339
same cases considered in Figs. 5 and 6) were the fol-
lowing:
a. a0.5, b0.5, and e0.5 (for b1 and horizontal
leaves).
b. a0.02, b0.15, and e0.5 (for b0.4 and
spherical LAD).
Figure 7 shows the error of derived fv in both cases.
It reveals a considerable reduction of systematic error of
fv as compared with Figure 6, especially for plants with
horizontal leaves and b1. For example, in both cases
this error is generally below 0.02. Otherwise, the statisti-
cal error is similarly low (typically under 0.01). These re-
sults seem to indicate that systematic errors of fv are
likely to be reduced in controlled circumstances. Never-
theless, when dealing when real cases there might be a
great uncertainty in canopy architecture (e.g., in studies
at a regional scale), and, therefore, the procedure under-
taken to correct influences of neighboring plants could
fail. A great deal of future work is necessary to refine
the correction model in order to adapt it to different nat-
ural ecosystems.
Influence of LAI Uncertainty
Although the LAI of plants may be hypothesized from
the knowledge of the canopy (vegetation type, phenolo-
gic status, etc.), this estimate could present certain inac-
curacies. We have now undertaken a sensitivity analysis
to show the degree to which this uncertainty in LAI may
influence the derived values of fv. In this analysis we
have assumed a bias in the plants LAI of 30%. Unlike
the above example, this example provides a more exact
idea of the uncertainty that can be found in a real satel-
lite scene. Figure 8 shows the values obtained for the
bias of fv.
Naturally the underestimate of LAI caused an over-
estimate of fv, and vice versa. This systematic error is
more remarkable for dispersed plants, since in this case
soil contribution is higher and plant apparent reflectance
is very sensitive to effective LAI of plants. The statistical
error, not shown for conciseness, was quite independent
of the inaccuracy in LAI estimation.
340 Gilabert et al.
Simultaneous Estimation of fv and LAI
We have checked the feasibility of the model inversion
to assess together the LAI of plants and fv. We have first
adopted the original reflectance model [Eq. (14)]. Re-
sults are only shown for the case of b0.4 and spherical
LAD (see Fig. 9), although LAI was underestimated in
all cases. In general, this error was unacceptably high,
particularly for dense plants.
We can observe that, although derived LAI has a
significant systematic error, particularly in pixels with low
vegetation cover, the error is considerably lower when
vegetation cover is intermediate or high. For example,
this error is acceptably small (i.e., under 0.2) when the
LAI of plants is intermediate or low (LAI3), although
it increases significantly when plants are denser. The sta-
tistical error of LAI, although notably smaller, shows a
similar tendency.
Naturally the underestimate of LAI is enclosed by
an overestimate of fv, which is very noticeable (over 0.1)
for plants with horizontal leaves and b1, and relatively
small (typically about 0.05) for plants with vertical archi-
tecture (Fig. 9B). This systematic error generally in-
creases with the vegetation cover of the pixel. We subse-
quently applied the corrected model [Eq. (15)] and
found that though the systematic error of LAI was simi-
Figure 8. Values of bias (as derived from the corrected
model) versus vegetation cover, for 16-m-size pixels corre-
sponding to scenes with LAI values of 1 (), 3 (), and
5 (). Plants are characterized by b0.4 and spherical
LAD. A) LAI has been overestimated by 30%. B) LAI has
been underestimated by 30%.
Figure 7. The same as Figure 6 but using the cor-
rected model (see text).
larly high, the systematic error of fv was considerably re-
duced (below 0.03 in all cases). Logically the results of
the model inversion depend on the amount of available
information.
In conclusion, the inversion of the proposed model
is limited to retrieval of two very correlated variables,
LAI and fv, when the LAI of plants is elevated. This is
due to the fact that those variations in LAI can be ex-
plained as resulting from a variation in fv, because the
former may partially take account of the latter. In this
case the numerical process is less robust, causing an un-
derestimate of LAI, which is accompanied by an overes-
timate of fv. Nevertheless, when plant architecture is
more vertical and the proportion of illuminated soil is re-
duced, the ambiguity between LAI and fv diminishes, en-
abling us to simultaneously estimate both parameters. To
meet the condition of poorly illuminated soil, fi should
be small, for example, lower than 0.4. Otherwise, an ap-
plication of different sub-models in a multiple configura-
tion of architectures may convey information about the
type of canopy architecture.
FEASIBILITY OF LSMM DERIVED fv
A sensitivity analysis has been undertaken to analyze the
feasibility of LSMM to assess the vegetation fraction in
heterogeneous scenes. LSMM has been applied to unmix
the same data sets considered in the above section (i.e.,
the multispectral images simulated using the radiosity
model) in order to test the performance of a linear
model in presence of significant multiple scattering. This
modeling frame has facilitated the interpretation of the
LSMM derived vegetation fraction values (which will be
also termed fv) by comparing them with actual vegetation
cover values, and analyze the influence of the endmem-
ber used to represent the vegetation component.
LSMM has been applied using three endmembers
corresponding to vegetation, soil, and shadow. The classi-
cal estimator constrained to the sum-to-1 condition has
been applied to estimate the fractions, since it provides
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
Figure 9. Values of bias (full symbols) and statistical error
(open symbols) of fv and LAI versus vegetation cover, for
16-m-size pixels corresponding to scenes with LAI values of
1 (), 3 (), and 5 (). Plants are characterized by and
spherical LAD.
an unbiased solution (Settle and Drake, 1993; Garca-
Haro et al., 1996). Alternatively, numerical procedures
have been applied to constrain the fractions between 0
and 1 in the unrealistic cases of negative or superpositive
(100%) fractions. We have considered different images
corresponding to scenes with Quaternary soil and differ-
ent densities of plants characterized by spherical LAD,
b1, and different LAI values. Different combinations
of three endmembers have been considered, each pre-
senting a spectrum of the actual soil background, that is,
Quaternary (see Fig. 1B) and a typical spectrum of
shadow (see Fig. 10). To represent the vegetation end-
member, we have used both simulated spectra of dense
plants, that is, LAI5 and spectra of different vegetation
species acquired using field radiometry (see Fig. 10).
Figure 11 shows the errors of LSMM derived fv. The
first case (A) represents the case of a vegetation end-
member with LAI5, applied to unmix scenes with a
range of LAI and fractional cover. The figure reveals a
considerable bias of fv, which generally tends to increase
at increasing vegetation cover. Naturally the lesser the
LAI of plants, the lesser estimated fv. In general, we can
observe a positive bias at LAI1, that is, when actual
cover is higher than the model predicts. Thus vegetation
cover is usually underestimated when the LAI of plants
is small. For example, in case A when the vegetation
endmember (LAI5) is applied to unmix plants with
LAI1 (symbol ), the model underpredicts fractional
cover by up to 25%, that is, the vegetation endmember
has higher NIR reflectance than the actual vegetation in
the scene. A similar interpretation is possible for cases B
and D.
Otherwise, at LAI5 (symbol ), estimated fv over-
estimates actual cover. In fact, even in case A, that is,
when using a vegetation endmember which coincides
with the reflectance spectrum of plants present in the
scene, fv tends to overpredict actual fractional cover be-
cause the endmember does not incorporate the effects of
multiple scattering from adjacent plants and soil. Similar
results have been observed by other authors. For exam-
ple, Roberts (1991) and Roberts et al. (1993) demon-
341
Figure 10. Endmembers used in the LSMM
to represent the spectral signatures of
shadow () and four different vegetation spe-
cies: simulated spectrum of isolated plant
with LAI5, b1, and horizontal leaves (),
simulated spectrum of isolated plant with
LAI5, b0.4, and spherical LAD (), mea-
sured spectrum of corn (), and measured
spectrum of Stipa ().
strated that a simple linear model results in an overesti-
mate of the vegetation fraction and an underestimate in
shadow content due to the effects of multiple NIR scat-
tering. Also, Borel and Gerstl (1994) observed very large
errors in fractional estimates. Nevertheless, in the second
case (B), corresponding to a corn endmember with high
photosynthetic activity and compact architecture (higher
NIR reflectance and low reflectance values in the visible
bands), the bias is very small for plants with LAI5.
In the cases C and D we have used a spectrum of
Stipa to represent the vegetation endmember. In the
case C, actual fractional cover is overestimated, since the
Stipa spectrum has lower NIR reflectance than the ac-
tual vegetation in the scene, especially for intermediate
and dense plants. Nevertheless, in the case D estimated
fv is considerably lower. This is mainly due to structural
parameters of the scene plants (spherical LAD and
b0.4) typical of more dispersed and vertical canopies,
presenting lower NIR reflectance. Moreover, it is also
due to the mutual shadowing between plants, which
dominates for low and intermediate values of LAI, caus-
ing a reduction of apparent plant reflectance, which is
more relevant in the NIR (see Fig. 4B). Consequently,
except for dense plants fv underestimates vegetation
cover.
Identically, the bias of fv showed to be well related
with the mismatch between vegetation endmember and
the reflectance spectra of scene plants. For example, for
the scene plants considered in Figure 11D, the corn
endmember (typical of a vigorous canopy) produced the
highest underestimate of the vegetation fraction, reach-
ing up to 0.40. We can observe a bias even for pixels
with an absence of vegetation, since shadowing effects of
plants on soil reflectance may not be modeled merely
from a linear combination of shadow and soil endmem-
bers. Otherwise, the statistical error of fv is generally low
(below 0.02), although it is significantly higher when us-
342 Gilabert et al.
ing the endmember of Stipa, probably due to its lower
contrast with the rest of endmembers. This error is
higher for intermediate and high values of plants LAI,
when the spectral variability induced by the effect of
neighboring plants is higher.
If we compare the results with those obtained using
the proposed model, in Figure 6A (for the original
model) or in Figure 7A (corrected model), we appreciate
that the values of fv as derived by the LSMM are more
biased estimates of vegetation cover than those derived
from the proposed model. In addition, LSMM outcomes
are more sensitive to variations in the spectrum of the
vegetation component (e.g., the LAI of target used to
represent the vegetation endmember). One additional
difference is that LSMM usually requires the partitioning
of the estimating contribution of shade between the rest
of components in order to retrieve the absolute abun-
dance of vegetation. For example, in closed forest cano-
pies the multilayer structure is responsible for a high
amount of shadow. Hence when using a unique end-
member of vegetation, the relative contribution of
shaded vegetation should be assumed to be higher in for-
est canopies than in many agricultural crops and grass-
land areas. However, rather than viewed as a problem,
this high shade content also provides useful information
on canopy structure (Shimabukuro and Smith, 1991; Ad-
ams et al., 1997; Peddle et al., 1999).
As a result, estimating vegetation fraction (as derived
by means of the LSMM) cannot be interpreted in a
straightforward manner, but it is highly dependent of the
spectral and biophysical properties of the vegetation end-
member. For example, given a vegetation endmember,
estimated fv varies with the LAI of scene plants up to
0.30. The fact that the green vegetation fraction has a
Figure 11. Values of bias (full symbols) and statistical er-
ror (open symbols) of LSMM-derived fv versus vegeta-
tion cover, for 8-m-size pixels corresponding to scenes
with Quaternary soil. The density of plants is character-
ized by LAI values of 1 (), 3 (), and 5 (). Different
vegetation endmembers have been considered: A) plant
with a LAI5; B) corn; C and D) stipa. Cases A, B, and
C correspond to horizontal leaves and b1, while case
D corresponds to spherical LAD and b0.4.
complex relationship to actual fractional cover has al-
ready recognized by several authors (Adams et al., 1993;
Garca-Haro, 1997; Asner, 1998). For example, Adams et
al. (1993) use the term spectral fraction to distinguish
physical cover from modeled fractions which will vary
depending on canopy spectra, soil reflectance, etc. Nev-
ertheless, this study also shows that the mismatch be-
tween reflectance spectrum of plants and vegetation end-
member produces a bias of fv that is almost proportional
to pixel vegetation cover. Therefore, a linear calibration
based on ground measurements would provide an accu-
rate estimate of vegetation cover. Moreover, since the
calibration lines are close to the origin, a single ground
measurement of vegetation cover might be sufficient to
undertake a calibration for each different vegetation
cover type. This result suggests the validity a process to
determine the reference endmembers incorporating such
a calibration step (Adams et al., 1993). An improved
LSMM strategy that reduces errors due to vegetation
community differences consists in using a multiple end-
member configuration, allowing endmembers to vary ac-
cording to specific canopy characteristics (Garca-Haro et
al., 1997; Roberts et al., 1998).
CONCLUSIONS
In this article, we have developed a reflectance model
which parametrizes the reflectance of vegetation cano-
pies from the optical properties of leaves and soil, and
the dominant canopy structural parameters. The model
assumes certain principles of geometric models, for ex-
ample, that sensor integrates the radiance from materials
(plant, shaded soil, and illuminated soil). The model is
based on two relatively simplistic canopy geometric mod-
 A Mixture Modeling Approach To Estimate Vegetation Parameters
els, neglects the effects of surface roughness and topog-
raphy, and does not account for nonphotosynthetic com-
ponents within the canopy. Also, the model neglects
somewhat the critical role of some effects such as the
soil brightness at 100% canopy closure, the side light
scattered on soil, and the spectral variations of canopy
opacity. In addition to observable magnitudes (LAI, veg-
etation fraction (fv), etc.), the model uses magnitudes
which are directly related to canopy characteristics, such
as leaves opacity or reflectance of saturation. The model
presented here was inverted for retrieving canopy pa-
rameterssuch as LAI, fv, and average leaves inclina-
tionusing multispectral data (corresponding to the six
optical TM channels) simulated from a radiosity-based
model (Garca-Haro et al., 1999).
It was found that errors in one biophysical compo-
nent, such as LAI, translates into other key parameter,
such as fv. While potentially a weakness, the model pro-
vides a tool for assessing potential errors in remote sens-
ing estimates of plant cover and LAI under a variety of
conditions. For example, it was found that both parame-
ters may be simultaneously estimated when plants archi-
tecture is more vertical and the proportion of illuminated
soil reduces, since in this case the ambiguity between LAI
and fv diminishes. Otherwise, sensitivity analysis of the
model suggests that the bias in the linear spectral mixture
modeling (LSMM) estimate of fv can be reduced signifi-
cantly using as few as one ground measurement, offering
the potential of correcting errors in remote sensing esti-
mates through the strategic use of limited ground data.
It is generally possible to fix the value of LAI, for
example, from a priori knowledge of scene plants. In this
case, assuming also known plants structural parameters,
the estimate of fv constitutes an unmixing approach simi-
lar to the LSMM, but it presents some advantages. For
example, the proposed model takes into account pro-
cesses of shadowing, transmission, and multiple scatter-
ing of radiation within the crown enclosure. Hence, un-
like in the LSMM, the estimated fraction of shadow does
not need to be redistributed between vegetation and soil,
since plant reflectance itself takes into account shadow-
ing effects connected with plant multilayer structure.
Also, the model components have a physical basis, and
thus the modeling approach provides an interpretation of
estimated fv as the vegetation cover of plants presenting
well-defined characteristics. In addition, the proposed
model seems to provide estimates of vegetation cover
less biased than the LSMM and less dependent on the
input vegetation parameters.
Nevertheless, the model presents some disadvan-
tages compared with the LSMM. For example, it ne-
glects the effect of NPV (i.e., branches and stems ex-
posed in the canopy), which is a critical weakness in
most arid vegetation and many forests. Moreover, the
model neglects shade as an endmember, not being sensi-
tive to reduced illumination on sloping surfaces. For ex-
343
ample, shade refers to shadow cast by objects as well as
shading by topography an illumination. Because this
model does not include an explicit endmember from
shade, it will incorrectly model the effects of changes in
surface slope, aspect, and the effects of surface roughness.
One important source of errors is due to the interac-
tion of photons with vegetation components in vertical
space and significant intercanopy shading, effects which
have a critical impact when the cover types co-occur at
high spatial density. A great deal of future research is
required to incorporate these effects. Otherwise, the
model appears to be well suited to crop plants, where
leaves are dominant, soil reflectance is more uniform, to-
pography is minimal, and most crowns can be modeled
with simple geometric shapes. However, natural variation
in soil reflectance, rugged topography, complex canopy
geometry, variable leaf and soil optical properties, and
unmodeled NPV will surely complicate the problem.
Other complications are due to the large number of un-
knowns to deal with (A, B, C, j, etc.), which can vary
both between plants and within a pixel.
In order to mitigate these errors, we would propose
the application of different submodels in a multiple con-
figuration of model parameters (e.g., including different
soils spectra and/or several submodels for plant architec-
tures). The selection of the optimum configuration of
model parameters for each scene pixel may be under-
taken by means of an expert system that could incorpo-
rates as a criterion parameters such as the modeling er-
rors (e.g., RMS) of the different submodels.
Concluding, the proposed approach provides composi-
tional information of the ground surface that is linked with
the interpretation of the LSMM and seems to be a suit-
able remote sensing tool to study heterogeneous canopies.
This work has been supported by the MEDALUS III Project
funded by the European Communities (ENV4-CT95-0119) and
by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Spain (CICYT,
AMB97-1000-C02-02). Special thanks are due to the anony-
mous reviewers for their extremely helpful suggestion and in-
valuable comments.
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