Estimating Leaf Area Index of Paddy Rice from RapidEye Imagery to Assess Evapotranspiration in Korean Paddy Fields

Leaf area index (LAI) is important in explaining the ability of crops to intercept solar energy for biomass production, amount of plant transpiration, and in understanding the impact of crop management practices on crop growth. This paper describes a procedure for estimating LAI as a function of image‐derived vegetation indices from temporal series of RapidEye imagery obtained from 2010 to 2012 using empirical models in a rice plain in Seosan, Chungcheongnam‐do. Rice plants were sampled every two weeks to investigate LAI, fresh and dry biomass from late May to early October. RapidEye images were taken from June to September every year and corrected geometrically and atmospherically to calculate normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Linear, exponential, and expolinear models were developed to relate temporal satellite NDVIs to measured LAI. The expolinear model provided more accurate results to predict LAI than linear or exponential models based on root mean square error. The LAI distribution was in strong agreement with the field measurements in terms of geographical variation and relative numerical values when RapidEye imagery was applied to expolinear model. The spatial trend of LAI corresponded with the variation in the vegetation growth condition.