The development of a new model on vegetation water content

Remote sensing monitoring and inversion research of vegetation water content is one of the most important developments of quantitative remote sensing theory and application. The common features of spectral reflectance from vegetation foliage upon leaf dehydration are decreasing water absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) and short-wave-infrared (SWIR). We studied that leaf water indexes in the NIR and SWIR were the most suitable for the assessment of leaf water content and developed a new model TWI (triangle vegetation water index) to estimate both canopy and single leaf water content. From the results of validation perspective, this model has better estimation accuracy at both canopy and single leaf water content comparing to WI, PWI, and NDWI. Validation was established on the basis of PROSPECT+SAIL estimation and ground measured data. So the model had good reliability and great potential to monitor vegetation water content.