Fusion of PlanetScope and Sentinel 2 in assessing foliar C:N ratio in a rangeland

ABSTRACT

The efficient monitoring of foliar nutrient such as the C:N ratio is important for sustainable rangeland productivity. Recent advances in Earth observation technology provide multispectral sensors with high spatial, spectral and temporal resolution suitable for modelling foliar nutrients. This study explored the fusion of Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope datasets using the pixel fusion technique and the random forest algorithm. The result in this study is vital in understanding the value of image fusion in enhancing rangeland nutrient estimation for optimal productivity. The study concludes that the fusion of optical sensors requires further investigation.

KEYWORDS:

• C:N ratio
• rangeland
• Sentinel-2
• PlanetScope
• image fusion
• random forest regression

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the DST-NRF SARChI Chair in Land Use Planning and Management at UKZN (Grant No. 84157) for funding this research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data not available – participant consent: the participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research supporting data are not available.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the DST- NRF SARChI Chair in Land Use Planning and Management [84157].