How accurately does L band vegetation optical depth predict aboveground biomass?

ABSTRACT: L-band Vegetation Optical Depth (L-VOD) has emerged as a critical remote sensing proxy for monitoring global aboveground biomass (AGB) dynamics. Persistent methodological ambiguities, including the absence of standardized protocols for deriving AGB from L-VOD and the use of space-for-time assumption underpinning temporal predictions, pose challenges to the reliability of AGB estimates. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation on the current methodology using the SMOS-ICV2 L-VOD dataset and five AGB reference datasets. We find that all the existing fitting methods generally capture the AGB spatial variation, achieving 69-77 % variance explanation. Yet integrating tree cover significantly improves the AGB predictions in regions with small and medium L-VOD values. However, all m

SUBMITTER: Zhang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12711629 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature