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Monitoring ecosystems at regional or continental scales is paramount for biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and sustainable land management. Effective monitoring requires satellite imagery with both high spatial resolution and high temporal resolution. However, there is currently no single, freely available data source that fulfills these needs. A seamless fusion of data from the Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-2 optical sensors could meet these monitoring requirements as Sentinel-2 observes at the required spatial resolution (10 m) while Sentinel-3 observes at the required temporal resolution (daily). We introduce the Efficient Fusion Algorithm across Spatio-Temporal scales (EFAST), which interpolates Sentinel-2 data into smooth time series (both spatially and temporally). This interpolation is informed by Sentinel-3's temporal profile such that the phenological changes occurring between two Sentinel-2 acquisitions at a 10 m resolution are assumed to mirror those observed at Sentinel-3's resolution. The EFAST consists of a weighted sum of Sentinel-2 images (weighted by a distance-to-clouds score) coupled with a phenological correction derived from Sentinel-3. We validate the capacity of our method to reconstruct the phenological profile at a 10 m resolution over one rangeland area and one irrigated cropland area. The EFAST outperforms classical interpolation techniques over both rangeland (−72% in the mean absolute error, MAE) and agricultural areas (−43% MAE); it presents a performance comparable to the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM) (+5% MAE in both test areas) while being 140 times faster. The computational efficiency of our approach and its temporal smoothing enable the creation of seamless and high-resolution phenology products on a regional to continental scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind turbines in northern Europe are frequently placed in forests, which sets new wind resource modelling requirements. Accurate mapping of the land surface can be challenging at forested sites due to sudden transitions between patches with very different aerodynamic properties, e.g. tall trees, clearings, and lakes. Tree growth and deforestation can lead to temporal changes of the forest. Global or pan-European land cover data sets fail to resolve these forest properties, aerial lidar campaigns are costly and infrequent, and manual digitization is labour-intensive and subjective. Here, we investigate the potential of using satellite observations to characterize the land surface in connection with wind energy flow modelling using the Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WAsP). Collocated maps of the land cover, tree height, and leaf area index (LAI) are generated based on observations from the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 missions combined with the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). Three different forest canopy models are applied to convert these maps to roughness lengths and displacement heights. We introduce new functionalities for WAsP, which can process detailed land cover maps containing both roughness lengths and displacement heights. Validation is carried out through crossprediction analyses at eight well-instrumented sites in various landscapes where measurements at one mast are used to predict wind resources at another nearby mast. The use of novel satellite-based input maps in combination with a canopy model leads to lower cross-prediction errors of the wind power density (rmsD10.9 %-11.2 %) than using standard global or pan-European land cover data sets for land surface parameterization (rmsD14.2 %-19.7 %). Differences in the cross-predictions resulting from the three different canopy models are minor. The satellite-based maps show cross-prediction errors close to those obtained from aerial lidar scans and manually digitized maps. The results demonstrate the value of using detailed satellite-based land cover maps for microscale flow modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest reference levels (FRLs) provide a benchmark for assessing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), and they are central to demonstrate additionality of REDD+. Attaining realistic FRLs, however, is challenging, especially in complex mosaic landscapes. We established FRLs in northern Laos for different reference periods and tested them against actual carbon stock changes. Annual time series of Landsat satellite images were used to capture the subtle changes in carbon stocks in complex landscapes characterized by shifting cultivation. We found that FRLs differ considerably depending on the reference period chosen. Abrupt land-use changes occurred when hybrid maize replaced traditional shifting cultivation and forests, and this invalidated carbon stock trends that would have been predicted had the FRL been projected into the future. We conclude that demonstrating additionality of REDD+ in fast developing areas is difficult and that payment systems rewarding potential emission reductions against hypothetical extrapolation of FRLs are unlikely to be a cost-effective strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical environments present a unique challenge for optical time series analysis, primarily owing to fragmented data availability, persistent cloud cover and atmospheric aerosols. Additionally, little is known of whether the performance of time series change detection is affected by diverse forest types found in tropical dry regions. In this paper, we develop a methodology for mapping forest clearing in Southeast Asia using a study region characterised by heterogeneous forest types. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time series are decomposed using Breaks For Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) and breakpoints, trend, and seasonal components are combined in a binomial probability model to distinguish between cleared and stable forest. We found that the addition of seasonality and trend information improves the change model performance compared to using breakpoints alone. We also demonstrate the value of considering forest type in disturbance mapping in comparison to the more common approach that combines all forest types into a single generalised forest class. By taking a generalised forest approach, there is less control over the error distribution in each forest type. Dry-deciduous and evergreen forests are especially sensitive to error imbalances using a generalised forest model i.e., clearances were underestimated in evergreen forest, and overestimated in dry-deciduous forest. This suggests that forest type needs to be considered in time series change mapping, especially in heterogeneous forest regions. Our approach builds towards improving large-area monitoring of forest-diverse regions such as Southeast Asia. The findings of this study should also be transferable across optical sensors and are therefore relevant for the future availability of dense time series for the tropics at higher spatial resolutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wealth of complementary data available from remote sensing missions can hugely aid efforts towards accurately determining land use and quantifying subtle changes in land use management or intensity. This study reviewed 112 studies on fusing optical and radar data, which offer unique spectral and structural information, for land cover and use assessments. Contrary to our expectations, only 50 studies specifically addressed land use, and five assessed land use changes, while the majority addressed land cover. The advantages of fusion for land use analysis were assessed in 32 studies, and a large majority (28 studies) concluded that fusion improved results compared to using single data sources. Study sites were small, frequently 300-3000 km² or individual plots, with a lack of comparison of results and accuracies across sites. Although a variety of fusion techniques were used, pre-classification fusion followed by pixel-level inputs in traditional classification algorithms (e.g., Gaussian maximum likelihood classification) was common, but often without a concrete rationale on the applicability of the method to the land use theme being studied. Progress in this field of research requires the development of robust techniques of fusion to map the intricacies of land uses and changes therein and systematic procedures to assess the benefits of fusion over larger spatial scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) has been supplying a continuous data stream since 2000, lending to detailed time series analysis of the global terrestrial environment. This paper explores a quality anomaly present in the tropics relating to the aerosol quantity flag in the daily MODIS surface reflectance products (MOD09 series) and the 16-day Vegetation Index (VI) composite products (MOD13 series) derived from the daily observations. While the anomaly is to some extent a known issue reported by the MODIS Land Quality Assessment group, very little is known about the scale of the issue, the nature and patterns of its occurrence, and potential consequences for data analysis, which explains why it is not adequately recognized throughout the literature. Two tropical regions were used to explore the anomaly and demonstrate the effects it has on the quality of selected MODIS products–one in the South American Amazon, the other in mainland Southeast Asia. The origins of the anomaly are described qualitatively in detail, and quantitative estimates of affected evergreen forest area in the MOD13A1 time series are made using blue band thresholding. The anomaly originates in the 1 km State dataset, whereby, under certain conditions, high aerosol quantity pixels are given a low aerosol quantity label, resulting in poor quality pixels with "good" quality labels. MODIS users are advised to investigate whether this anomaly has significant implications for their respective analysis and to consider the effects it may have on past studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earth Observation (EO) data is a critical information source for mapping and monitoring water resources over large inaccessible regions where hydrological in-situ networks are sparse. In this paper, we present a simple yet robust method for fusing optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data for mapping surface water dynamics over mainland China. This method uses a multivariate logistic regression model to estimate monthly surface water extent over a four-year period (2017 to 2020) from the combined usages of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 imagery. Multi-seasonal high-resolution images from the Chinese Gaofen satellites are used as a reference for an independent validation showing a high degree of agreement (overall accuracy 94%) across a diversity of climatic and physiographic regions demonstrating potential scalability beyond China. Through inter-comparison with similar global scale products, this paper further shows how this new mapping technique provides improved spatio-temporal characterization of inland water bodies, and for better capturing smaller water bodies (< 0.81 ha in size). The relevance of the results is discussed, and we find this new enhanced monitoring approach has the potential to advance the use of Earth observation for water resource management, planning and reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]