TY  - THES
T1  - Ground-based Validation of the MODIS Leaf Area Index Product for East African Rain Forest Ecosystems 
A1  - Kraus,Tanja
Y1  - 2008/10/30
N2  - In the context of current global changes tropical rain forests are undergoing significant alterations. Deforestation and degradation processes have already destroyed 35 -50% of the original forest cover. One of the biggest challenges to the estimation of changes is the monitoring of forest areas on a reliable, fast, cost effective and area-wide basis. Here, operational remote sensing techniques form a valuable data source. Changes in forest structure and dynamics can, for instance, be monitored through repeated measurement of remotely measured biophysical attributes. In contrast to discrete representations of land cover, biophysical variables alter continuously over space and time and may thereby reveal early ecosystem modifications. In this context, leaf area index is one of the key biophysical variables. It characterises canopy structure and accounts for differences in phenological development, assimilation and biomass growth among plant species. Operational standard products of LAI derived from satellite data, as e.g. the MODIS LAI product, can thus contribute to the constant and repetitive monitoring of forest areas. However, a prerequisite for the use of operational satellite products is the evaluation of their accuracy in a process called validation. So far, there has been a clear lack of validation sites for the MODIS LAI product in tropical rain forests. Especially in Africa no test sites have been available. Consequently, this thesis deals with the validation of the MODIS LAI product for two test sites in East Africa. Ground-based measurements were performed in Budongo Forest (Uganda) and Kakamega Forest (Kenya) and upscaled to the spatial resolution of the MODIS LAI product based on high resolution satellite data (ASTER, SPOT-4). Finally the MODIS LAI product was validated with respect to its accuracy in representing landscape LAI and to its temporal consistency. 
KW  - Fernerkundung
KW  - Blattflächenindex
KW  - Validierung
KW  - Ostafrika
KW  - Tropischer Regenwald
KW  - MODIS
CY  - Erlangen
PB  - Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
AD  - Universitätsstraße. 4, 91054 Erlangen
L2  - http://www.opus.ub.uni-erlangen.de/opus/volltexte/2008/1173
ER  -