Detecting the responses of Masson pine to acid stress using hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing

Abstract

In this study, we detected the spectrum and vegetation index responses of Masson pine to acid stress using ground-based hyperspectral radiometry and satellite-based multispectral remote sensing. From the hyperspectral detection, we found that the spectral reflectance of stressed Masson pine increased with increase in acidity in the visible region, while an opposite result was found in the near-infrared (NIR) region. The simulated normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from hyperspectral data of Masson pine presented higher values under weaker acid stress in general. Similar results were observed by satellite-derived NDVI across four acidity gradient transects in subtropical China. Both annual average NDVI and inter-annual NDVI trends of Masson pine forest increased with increase in annual average precipitation acidity (pH), indicating that acid stress would inhibit the growth of Masson pine under certain environmental conditions. However, there are limitations and uncertainties in our present work, and the integration of long-term ground-based and satellite-based observations of vegetation growth and acidity deposition is urgently needed.

Acknowledgements

Funding support was derived partially from the NSF China Major Programme (41101315, 61190114, and 41171324), the State Key Fundamental Science Funds of China (2011CB302705, 2010CB950702, and 2010CB428503), the Funds for Ph.D. Education (20110091110028), the fundamental research project of MOST (2005DKA32300), the Priority Academic Programme Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, and Zhejiang Province Key Science and Technology Innovation Team (2010R50030).