IMPROVING METHODS FOR MODELLING LEAF AREA INDEX IN ISOLATED URBAN TREES

During a Short Term Scientific Mission in May 2014, funded by the COST Action FP1204, Dr. Francesco Chianucci from the Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura - Forestry Research Centre (Arezzo, IT) visited the Tartu Observatory in Estonia. Dr. Francesco Chianucci discussed the problems of radiative transfer in vegetation and of use of optical canopy instruments for isolated plant analysis with the members of vegetation remote sensing group in Tartu Observatory. After thorough reviewing of indirect optical methods, he individuated digital photography as a potentially suitable method for application in urban settings. Several features available from digital photography (i.e., leaf inclination angle measurements from levelled camera approach; vegetation indices of greenness derived from Digital Number inversion) have been proposed for crop and forestry systems, but still not tested at the individual (urban) tree scale. By combining different digital camera approaches, he proposed strategies for improving leaf area index retrieval in urban settings, an important step for understanding ecosystem processes related to leaf area in urban systems.