Determining the Canopy Water Stress for Spring Wheat Using Canopy Hyperspectral Reflectance Data in Loess Plateau Semiarid Regions

Abstract

Crop water stress significantly reduces crop yield. Several studies have employed optical and remote-sensing methods to obtain nondamage monitoring crop water content to understand the agriculture drought process. In this paper, the spectral information (i.e., the canopy absorption feature at the 350–2500 nm band range) from the field experiments was used to estimate and identify the canopy water stress. Five different levels of water treatments exist in the spring wheat field in the semiarid regions of Loess Plateau, Northwest China. The hyperspectral reflectance, soil moisture content, soil water potential, canopy water content, amount of chlorophyll, leaf area index, and environmental parameters were measured. The relationship between canopy reflectance and canopy water content was analyzed at different water stress levels. In addition, various spectral indices were tested by measurements. Results showed that a high correlation exists in semiarid water index-1, semiarid water index-2, and red-edge normalized difference vegetation index, thus denoting that these indices can indicate water stress effectively. We can conclude that canopy reflectance can identify crop water stress and can be used to develop a certain index for monitoring agriculture drought.

Keywords:

• canopy hyperspectral reflectance
• semiarid regions
• spectral indices
• spring wheat
• water stress

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank their colleagues in Dingxi Agriculture Meteorology Station.