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Remote Sens. 2010, 2(4), 926-938; doi:10.3390/rs2040926

Article

Non-Lambertian Corrected Albedo and Vegetation Index for Estimating Land Evapotranspiration in a Heterogeneous Semi-Arid Landscape

Isabella Mariotto ^1,*  and Vincent P. Gutschick ²

¹ Biology Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA ² Global Change Consulting Consortium, Inc., 4904 Calabazilla Rd., Las Cruces, NM 88011, USA

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 29 December 2009; in revised form: 15 March 2010 / Accepted: 19 March 2010 / Published: 30 March 2010

Download PDF Full-Text [677 KB, uploaded 30 March 2010 14:11 CEST]

Abstract: The application of energy balance algorithms to remotely sensed imagery often fails to account for surface roughness variation with diverse land cover, resulting in poor resolution of evapotranspiration (ET) variations. Furthermore, the assumption of a horizontally homogeneous Lambertian surface reflecting energy equally in all directions affects the calculations of albedo and vegetation index. The primary objective of this study is to improve the accuracy of the estimation and discrimination of ET among different land cover types in Southern New Mexico from ASTER datasets, by formulating the spatial variation of non-Lambertian reflectance using a wavelength-dependent Minnaert function.

Keywords: evapotranspiration; energy balance; non-Lambertian; remote sensing; GIS; land cover; ASTER

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