Remote sensing techniques to assess chlorophyll fluorescence in support of crop monitoring in Poland

Abstract The increase in demand for food and the need to predict the impact of a warming climate on vegetation makes it critical that the best tools for assessing crop production are found. Chlorophyll fluorescence (ChlF) has been proposed as a direct indicator of photosynthesis and plant condition. The aim of this paper is to study the feasibility of estimating ChlF from spectral vegetation indices derived from Sentinel-2, in order to monitor crop stress and investigate ChlF changes in response to surface temperatures and meteorological observations. The regressions between thirty three Sentinel-2-derived VIs, and ChlF measured on the ground were evaluated in order to estimate the best predictors of ChlF. The r-Pearson correlation and polynomial linear regression were used. For maize, the highest correlation between ChlF and VIs were found for NDII (r=0.65) and for SIPI (r=−0.68). The weakest relationship between VIs and ChlF were found for sugar beets. Despite this, it should be noted that the highest correlation for sugar beets appeared for EVI (r=0.45) and S2REP (r=0.43). The results of this study indicate the need for a synergy of low and high resolution satellite data that will enable a more detailed analysis for estimating fluorescence and its relation to climatic conditions, environmental aspects, and VIs derived from satellite images.