Comparison LAI estimates from of high resolution satellite observations using different biophysical processors

Earth observation provides timely and spatially explicit information on crop phenology and vegetation dynamics that can support decision making and sustainable agricultural land management. Vegetation spectral indices calculated from optical multispectral satellite sensors have been largely used to monitor vegetation status. Besides, techniques to retrieve biophysical parameters from satellite acquisitions, like the Leaf Area Index (LAI), allowed to assimilate Earth observation time series in numerical modelling for the analysis of several land surface processes related to agroecosystem dynamics. More recently, biophysical processors used to estimate biophysical parameters from satellite acquisitions have been calibrated for the retrieval from sensors with different high spatial resolution and spectral characteristics. Virtual constellations of satellite sensors allow the generation of denser LAI time series, contributing to improve vegetation phenology estimation accuracy and consequently enhancing agroecosystems monitoring capacity. This research study compare LAI estimates over croplands using different biophysical processors from Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat-8 OLI satellite sensors. Results are used to demonstrate the capacity of virtual satellite constellation to strengthen LAI time series to derive important cropland use information over large areas.