Bayesian multimodel estimation of global terrestrial latent heat flux from eddy covariance, meteorological, and satellite observations

Accurate estimation of the satellite-based global terrestrial latent heat flux (LE) at high spatial and temporal scales remains a major challenge. In this study, we introduce a Bayesian model averaging (BMA) method to improve satellite-based global terrestrial LE estimation by merging five process-based algorithms. These are the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LE product algorithm, the revised remote-sensing-based Penman-Monteith LE algorithm, the Priestley-Taylor-based LE algorithm, the modified satellite-based Priestley-Taylor LE algorithm, and the semi-empirical Penman LE algorithm. We validated the BMA method using data for 2000–2009 and by comparison with a simple model averaging (SA) method and five process-based algorithms. Validation data were collected for 240 globally distributed eddy covariance tower sites provided by FLUXNET projects. The validation results demonstrate that the five process-based algorithms used have variable uncertainty and the BMA method enhances the daily LE estimates, with smaller root mean square errors (RMSEs) than the SA method and the individual algorithms driven by tower-specific meteorology and Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological data provided by the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), respectively. The average RMSE for the BMA method driven by daily tower-specific meteorology decreased by more than 5 W/m2 for crop and grass sites, and by more than 6 W/m2 for forest, shrub, and savanna sites. The average coefficients of determination (R2) increased by approximately 0.05 for most sites. To test the BMA method for regional mapping, we applied it for MODIS data and GMAO-MERRA meteorology to map annual global terrestrial LE averaged over 2001–2004 for spatial resolution of 0.05°. The BMA method provides a basis for generating a long-term global terrestrial LE product for characterizing global energy, hydrological, and carbon cycles

Evaluation of global terrestrial evapotranspiration using state-of-the-art approaches in remote sensing, machine learning and land surface modeling

Evapotranspiration (ET) is critical in linking global water, carbon and energy cycles. However, direct measurement of global terrestrial ET is not feasible. Here, we first reviewed the basic theory and state-of-the-art approaches for estimating global terrestrial ET, including remote-sensing-based physical models, machine-learning algorithms and land surface models (LSMs). We then utilized 4 remote-sensing-based physical models, 2 machine-learning algorithms and 14 LSMs to analyze the spatial and temporal variations in global terrestrial ET. The results showed that the ensemble means of annual global terrestrial ET estimated by these three categories of approaches agreed well, with values ranging from 589.6 mm yr−1 (6.56×104 km3 yr−1) to 617.1 mm yr−1 (6.87×104 km3 yr−1). For the period from 1982 to 2011, both the ensembles of remote-sensing-based physical models and machine-learning algorithms suggested increasing trends in global terrestrial ET (0.62 mm yr−2 with a significance level of p0.05), although many of the individual LSMs reproduced an increasing trend. Nevertheless, all 20 models used in this study showed that anthropogenic Earth greening had a positive role in increasing terrestrial ET. The concurrent small interannual variability, i.e., relative stability, found in all estimates of global terrestrial ET, suggests that a potential planetary boundary exists in regulating global terrestrial ET, with the value of this boundary being around 600 mm yr−1. Uncertainties among approaches were identified in specific regions, particularly in the Amazon Basin and arid/semiarid regions. Improvements in parameterizing water stress and canopy dynamics, the utilization of new available satellite retrievals and deep-learning methods, and model–data fusion will advance our predictive understanding of global terrestrial ET

Classification of Different Irrigation Systems at Field Scale Using Time-Series of Remote Sensing Data

Maps of irrigation systems are of critical value for a better understanding of the human impact on the water cycle, while they also present a very useful tool at the administrative level to monitor changes and optimize irrigation practices. This study proposes a novel approach for classifying different irrigation systems at field level by using remotely sensed data at subfield scale as inputs of different supervised machine learning (ML) models for time-series classification. The ML models were trained using ground-truth data from more than 300 fields collected during a field campaign in 2020 across an intensely cultivated region in Catalunya, Spain. Two hydrological variables retrieved from satellite data, actual evapotranspiration ( ETa ) and soil moisture ( SM ), showed the best results when used for classification, especially when combined together, retrieving a final accuracy of 90.1±2.7% . All the three ML models employed for the classification showed that they were able to distinguish different irrigation systems, regardless of the different crops present in each field. For all the different tests, the best performances were reached by ResNET, the only deep neural network model among the three tested. The resulting method enables the creation of maps of irrigation systems at field level and for large areas, delivering detailed information on the status and evolution of irrigation practices.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estimation of Spatially Continuous Near-Surface Relative Humidity Over Japan and South Korea

Near-surface relative humidity (RHns) is an essential meteorological parameter for water, carbon, and climate studies. However, spatially continuous RHns estimation is difficult due to the spatial discontinuity of in situ observations and the cloud contamination of satellite-based data. This article proposed machine learning-based models to estimate spatially continuous daily RHns at 1 km resolution over Japan and South Korea under all sky conditions and examined the spatiotemporal patterns of RHns. All sky estimation of RHns using machine learning has been rarely conducted, and it can be an alternative to the currently available RHns data mostly from numerical models, which have relatively low spatial resolution. We combined two schemes for clear sky conditions (scheme A, which uses satellite and reanalysis data) and cloudy sky conditions (scheme B, which uses reanalysis data solely). The relatively small numbers of data in extremely low and high RHns conditions (i.e., <30% or >70%, respectively) were augmented by applying an oversampling method to avoid biased training. The machine learning models based on random forest (RF) and XGBoost were trained and validated using 94 in situ observation sites from meteorological administrations of both countries from 2012 to 2017. The results showed that XGBoost produced slightly better performance than RF, and the spatially continuous RHns model combined based on XGBoost yielded the coefficient of determination of 0.72 and a root-mean-square error of 10.61%. Spatiotemporal patterns of the estimated RHns agreed with in situ observations, reflecting the effect of topography on RHns. We expect that the proposed RHns model could be used in various environmental studies that require RHns under all sky conditions as input data

Sustainable Agriculture and Advances of Remote Sensing (Volume 1)

Agriculture, as the main source of alimentation and the most important economic activity globally, is being affected by the impacts of climate change. To maintain and increase our global food system production, to reduce biodiversity loss and preserve our natural ecosystem, new practices and technologies are required. This book focuses on the latest advances in remote sensing technology and agricultural engineering leading to the sustainable agriculture practices. Earth observation data, in situ and proxy-remote sensing data are the main source of information for monitoring and analyzing agriculture activities. Particular attention is given to earth observation satellites and the Internet of Things for data collection, to multispectral and hyperspectral data analysis using machine learning and deep learning, to WebGIS and the Internet of Things for sharing and publishing the results, among others

시공간 해상도 향상을 통한 식생 변화 모니터링

학위논문(박사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 환경대학원 협동과정 조경학, 2023. 2. 류영렬.육상 생태계에서 대기권과 생물권의 상호 작용을 이해하기 위해서는 식생 변화의 모니터링이 필요하다. 이 때, 위성영상은 지표면을 관측하여 식생지도를 제공할 수 있지만, 지표변화의 상세한 정보는 구름이나 위성 이미지의 공간 해상도에 의해 제한되었다. 또한 위성영상의 시공간 해상도가 식생지도를 통한 광합성 모니터링에 미치는 영향은 완전히 밝혀지지 않았다. 본 논문에서는 고해상도 식생 지도를 일단위로 생성하기 위성 영상의 시공간 해상도를 향상시키는 것을 목표로 하였다. 고해상도 위성영상을 활용한 식생 변화 모니터링을 시공간적으로 확장하기 위해 1) 정지궤도 위성을 활용한 영상융합을 통해 시간해상도 향상, 2) 적대적생성네트워크를 활용한 공간해상도 향상, 3) 시공간해상도가 높은 위성영상을 토지피복이 균질하지 않은 공간에서 식물 광합성 모니터링을 수행하였다. 이처럼, 위성기반 원격탐지에서 새로운 기술이 등장함에 따라 현재 및 과거의 위성영상은 시공간 해상도 측면에서 향상되어 식생 변화의 모니터링 할 수 있다. 제2장에서는 정지궤도위성영상을 활용하는 시공간 영상융합으로 식물의 광합성을 모니터링 했을 때, 시간해상도가 향상됨을 보였다. 시공간 영상융합 시, 구름탐지, 양방향 반사 함수 조정, 공간 등록, 시공간 융합, 시공간 결측치 보완 등의 과정을 거친다. 이 영상융합 산출물은 경작관리 등으로 식생 지수의 연간 변동이 큰 두 장소(농경지와 낙엽수림)에서 평가하였다. 그 결과, 시공간 영상융합 산출물은 결측치 없이 현장관측을 예측하였다 (R2 = 0.71, 상대 편향 = 5.64% 농경지; R2 = 0.79, 상대 편향 = -13.8%, 활엽수림). 시공간 영상융합은 식생 지도의 시공간 해상도를 점진적으로 개선하여, 식물 생장기동안 위성영상이 현장 관측을 과소 평가를 줄였다. 영상융합은 높은 시공간 해상도로 광합성 지도를 일간격으로 생성하기에 이를 활용하여 위성 영상의 제한된 시공간 해상도로 밝혀지지 않은 식물변화의 과정을 발견하길 기대한다. 식생의 공간분포은 정밀농업과 토지 피복 변화 모니터링을 위해 필수적이다. 고해상도 위성영상으로 지구 표면을 관측하는 것을 용이하게 해졌다. 특히 Planet Fusion은 초소형위성군 데이터를 최대한 활용해 데이터 결측이 없는 3m 공간 해상도의 지표 표면 반사도이다. 그러나 과거 위성 센서(Landsat의 경우 30~60m)의 공간 해상도는 식생의 공간적 변화를 상세 분석하는 것을 제한했다. 제3장에서는 Landsat 데이터의 공간 해상도를 향상하기 위해 Planet Fusion 및 Landsat 8 데이터를 사용하여 이중 적대적 생성 네트워크(the dual RSS-GAN)를 학습시켜, 고해상도 정규화 식생 지수(NDVI)와 식물 근적외선 반사(NIRv)도를 생성하는 한다. 타워기반 현장 식생지수(최대 8년)와 드론기반 초분광지도로 the dual RSS-GAN의 성능을 대한민국 내 두 대상지(농경지와 활엽수림)에서 평가했다. The dual RSS-GAN은 Landsat 8 영상의 공간해상도를 향상시켜 공간 표현을 보완하고 식생 지수의 계절적 변화를 포착했다(R2> 0.96). 그리고 the dual RSS-GAN은 Landsat 8 식생 지수가 현장에 비해 과소 평가되는 것을 완화했다. 현장 관측에 비해 이중 RSS-GAN과 Landsat 8의 상대 편향 값 각각 -0.8% 에서 -1.5%, -10.3% 에서 -4.6% 였다. 이러한 개선은 Planet Fusion의 공간정보를 이중 RSS-GAN로 학습하였기에 가능했다. 헤당 연구 결과는 Landsat 영상의 공간 해상도를 향상시켜 숨겨진 공간 정보를 제공하는 새로운 접근 방식이다. 고해상도에서 식물 광합성 지도는 토지피복이 복잡한 공간에서 탄소 순환 모니터링시 필수적이다. 그러나 Sentinel-2, Landsat 및 MODIS와 같이 태양 동조 궤도에 있는 위성은 공간 해상도가 높거나 시간 해상도 높은 위성영상만 제공할 수 있다. 최근 발사된 초소형위성군은 이러한 해상도 한계을 극복할 수 있다. 특히 Planet Fusion은 초소형위성 자료의 시공간 해상도로 지표면을 관측할 수 있다. 4장에서, Planet Fusion 지표반사도를 이용하여 식생에서 반사된 근적외선 복사(NIRvP)를 3m 해상도 지도를 일간격으로 생성했다. 그런 다음 미국 캘리포니아주 새크라멘토-샌 호아킨 델타의 플럭스 타워 네트워크 데이터와 비교하여 식물 광합성을 추정하기 위한 NIRvP 지도의 성능을 평가하였다. 전체적으로 NIRvP 지도는 습지의 잦은 수위 변화에도 불구하고 개별 대상지의 식물 광합성의 시간적 변화를 포착하였다. 그러나 대상지 전체에 대한 NIRvP 지도와 식물 광합성 사이의 관계는 NIRvP 지도를 플럭스 타워 관측범위와 일치시킬 때만 높은 상관관계를 보였다. 관측범위를 일치시킬 경우, NIRvP 지도는 식물 광합성을 추정하는 데 있어 현장 NIRvP보다 우수한 성능을 보였다. 이러한 성능 차이는 플럭스 타워 관측범위를 일치시킬 때, 연구 대상지 간의 NIRvP-식물 광합성 관계의 기울기가 일관성을 보였기 때문이다. 본 연구 결과는 위성 관측을 플럭스 타워 관측범위와 일치시키는 것의 중요성을 보여주고 높은 시공간 해상도로 식물 광합성을 원격으로 모니터링하는 초소형위성군 자료의 잠재력을 보여준다.Monitoring changes in terrestrial vegetation is essential to understanding interactions between atmosphere and biosphere, especially terrestrial ecosystem. To this end, satellite remote sensing offer maps for examining land surface in different scales. However, the detailed information was hindered under the clouds or limited by the spatial resolution of satellite imagery. Moreover, the impacts of spatial and temporal resolution in photosynthesis monitoring were not fully revealed. In this dissertation, I aimed to enhance the spatial and temporal resolution of satellite imagery towards daily gap-free vegetation maps with high spatial resolution. In order to expand vegetation change monitoring in time and space using high-resolution satellite images, I 1) improved temporal resolution of satellite dataset through image fusion using geostationary satellites, 2) improved spatial resolution of satellite dataset using generative adversarial networks, and 3) showed the use of high spatiotemporal resolution maps for monitoring plant photosynthesis especially over heterogeneous landscapes. With the advent of new techniques in satellite remote sensing, current and past datasets can be fully utilized for monitoring vegetation changes in the respect of spatial and temporal resolution. In Chapter 2, I developed the integrated system that implemented geostationary satellite products in the spatiotemporal image fusion method for monitoring canopy photosynthesis. The integrated system contains the series of process (i.e., cloud masking, nadir bidirectional reflectance function adjustment, spatial registration, spatiotemporal image fusion, spatial gap-filling, temporal-gap-filling). I conducted the evaluation of the integrated system over heterogeneous rice paddy landscape where the drastic land cover changes were caused by cultivation management and deciduous forest where consecutive changes occurred in time. The results showed that the integrated system well predict in situ measurements without data gaps (R2 = 0.71, relative bias = 5.64% at rice paddy site; R2 = 0.79, relative bias = -13.8% at deciduous forest site). The integrated system gradually improved the spatiotemporal resolution of vegetation maps, reducing the underestimation of in situ measurements, especially during peak growing season. Since the integrated system generates daily canopy photosynthesis maps for monitoring dynamics among regions of interest worldwide with high spatial resolution. I anticipate future efforts to reveal the hindered information by the limited spatial and temporal resolution of satellite imagery. Detailed spatial representations of terrestrial vegetation are essential for precision agricultural applications and the monitoring of land cover changes in heterogeneous landscapes. The advent of satellite-based remote sensing has facilitated daily observations of the Earths surface with high spatial resolution. In particular, a data fusion product such as Planet Fusion has realized the delivery of daily, gap-free surface reflectance data with 3-m pixel resolution through full utilization of relatively recent (i.e., 2018-) CubeSat constellation data. However, the spatial resolution of past satellite sensors (i.e., 30–60 m for Landsat) has restricted the detailed spatial analysis of past changes in vegetation. In Chapter 3, to overcome the spatial resolution constraint of Landsat data for long-term vegetation monitoring, we propose a dual remote-sensing super-resolution generative adversarial network (dual RSS-GAN) combining Planet Fusion and Landsat 8 data to simulate spatially enhanced long-term time-series of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and near-infrared reflectance from vegetation (NIRv). We evaluated the performance of the dual RSS-GAN against in situ tower-based continuous measurements (up to 8 years) and remotely piloted aerial system-based maps of cropland and deciduous forest in the Republic of Korea. The dual RSS-GAN enhanced spatial representations in Landsat 8 images and captured seasonal variation in vegetation indices (R2 > 0.95, for the dual RSS-GAN maps vs. in situ data from all sites). Overall, the dual RSS-GAN reduced Landsat 8 vegetation index underestimations compared with in situ measurements; relative bias values of NDVI ranged from −3.2% to 1.2% and −12.4% to −3.7% for the dual RSS-GAN and Landsat 8, respectively. This improvement was caused by spatial enhancement through the dual RSS-GAN, which captured fine-scale information from Planet Fusion. This study presents a new approach for the restoration of hidden sub-pixel spatial information in Landsat images. Mapping canopy photosynthesis in both high spatial and temporal resolution is essential for carbon cycle monitoring in heterogeneous areas. However, well established satellites in sun-synchronous orbits such as Sentinel-2, Landsat and MODIS can only provide either high spatial or high temporal resolution but not both. Recently established CubeSat satellite constellations have created an opportunity to overcome this resolution trade-off. In particular, Planet Fusion allows full utilization of the CubeSat data resolution and coverage while maintaining high radiometric quality. In Chapter 4, I used the Planet Fusion surface reflectance product to calculate daily, 3-m resolution, gap-free maps of the near-infrared radiation reflected from vegetation (NIRvP). I then evaluated the performance of these NIRvP maps for estimating canopy photosynthesis by comparing with data from a flux tower network in Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California, USA. Overall, NIRvP maps captured temporal variations in canopy photosynthesis of individual sites, despite changes in water extent in the wetlands and frequent mowing in the crop fields. When combining data from all sites, however, I found that robust agreement between NIRvP maps and canopy photosynthesis could only be achieved when matching NIRvP maps to the flux tower footprints. In this case of matched footprints, NIRvP maps showed considerably better performance than in situ NIRvP in estimating canopy photosynthesis both for daily sum and data around the time of satellite overpass (R2 = 0.78 vs. 0.60, for maps vs. in situ for the satellite overpass time case). This difference in performance was mostly due to the higher degree of consistency in slopes of NIRvP-canopy photosynthesis relationships across the study sites for flux tower footprint-matched maps. Our results show the importance of matching satellite observations to the flux tower footprint and demonstrate the potential of CubeSat constellation imagery to monitor canopy photosynthesis remotely at high spatio-temporal resolution.Chapter 1. Introduction 2 1. Background 2 1.1 Daily gap-free surface reflectance using geostationary satellite products 2 1.2 Monitoring past vegetation changes with high-spatial-resolution 3 1.3 High spatiotemporal resolution vegetation photosynthesis maps 4 2. Purpose of Research 4 Chapter 2. Generating daily gap-filled BRDF adjusted surface reflectance product at 10 m resolution using geostationary satellite product for monitoring daily canopy photosynthesis 6 1. Introduction 6 2. Methods 11 2.1 Study sites 11 2.2 In situ measurements 13 2.3 Satellite products 14 2.4 Integrated system 17 2.5 Canopy photosynthesis 21 2.6 Evaluation 23 3. Results and discussion 24 3.1 Comparison of STIF NDVI and NIRv with in situ NDVI and NIRv 24 3.2 Comparison of STIF NIRvP with in situ NIRvP 28 4. Conclusion 31 Chapter 3. Super-resolution of historic Landsat imagery using a dual Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) model with CubeSat constellation imagery for monitoring vegetation changes 32 1. Introduction 32 2. Methods 38 2.1 Real-ESRGAN model 38 2.2 Study sites 40 2.3 In situ measurements 42 2.4 Vegetation index 44 2.5 Satellite data 45 2.6 Planet Fusion 48 2.7 Dual RSS-GAN via fine-tuned Real-ESRGAN 49 2.8 Evaluation 54 3. Results 57 3.1 Comparison of NDVI and NIRv maps from Planet Fusion, Sentinel 2 NBAR, and Landsat 8 NBAR data with in situ NDVI and NIRv 57 3.2 Comparison of dual RSS-SRGAN model results with Landsat 8 NDVI and NIRv 60 3.3 Comparison of dual RSS-GAN model results with respect to in situ time-series NDVI and NIRv 63 3.4 Comparison of the dual RSS-GAN model with NDVI and NIRv maps derived from RPAS 66 4. Discussion 70 4.1 Monitoring changes in terrestrial vegetation using the dual RSS-GAN model 70 4.2 CubeSat data in the dual RSS-GAN model 72 4.3 Perspectives and limitations 73 5. Conclusion 78 Appendices 79 Supplementary material 82 Chapter 4. Matching high resolution satellite data and flux tower footprints improves their agreement in photosynthesis estimates 85 1. Introduction 85 2. Methods 89 2.1 Study sites 89 2.2 In situ measurements 92 2.3 Planet Fusion NIRvP 94 2.4 Flux footprint model 98 2.5 Evaluation 98 3. Results 105 3.1 Comparison of Planet Fusion NIRv and NIRvP with in situ NIRv and NIRvP 105 3.2 Comparison of instantaneous Planet Fusion NIRv and NIRvP with against tower GPP estimates 108 3.3 Daily GPP estimation from Planet Fusion -derived NIRvP 114 4. Discussion 118 4.1 Flux tower footprint matching and effects of spatial and temporal resolution on GPP estimation 118 4.2 Roles of radiation component in GPP mapping 123 4.3 Limitations and perspectives 126 5. Conclusion 133 Appendix 135 Supplementary Materials 144 Chapter 5. Conclusion 153 Bibliography 155 Abstract in Korea 199 Acknowledgements 202박

New high-resolution estimates of the permafrost thermal state and hydrothermal conditions over the Northern Hemisphere

Monitoring the thermal state of permafrost (TSP) is important in many environmental science and engineering applications. However, such data are generally unavailable, mainly due to the lack of ground observations and the uncertainty of traditional physical models. This study produces novel permafrost datasets for the Northern Hemisphere (NH), including predictions of the mean annual ground temperature (MAGT) at the depth of zero annual amplitude (DZAA) (approximately 3 to 25 m) and active layer thickness (ALT) with 1 km resolution for the period of 2000-2016, as well as estimates of the probability of permafrost occurrence and permafrost zonation based on hydrothermal conditions. These datasets integrate unprecedentedly large amounts of field data (1002 boreholes for MAGT and 452 sites for ALT) and multisource geospatial data, especially remote sensing data, using statistical learning modeling with an ensemble strategy. Thus, the resulting data are more accurate than those of previous circumpolar maps (bias = 0 :02 +/- 0 :16 degrees C and RMSE = 1 :32 +/- 0 :13 degrees C for MAGT; bias = 2 :71 +/- 16 :46 cm and RMSE = 86 :93 +/- 19 :61 cm for ALT). The datasets suggest that the areal extent of permafrost (MAGT 0) is approximately 19 :82 x 10(6) km(2). The areal fractions of humid, semiarid/subhumid, and arid permafrost regions are 51.56 %, 45.07 %, and 3.37 %, respectively. The areal fractions of cold ( 1 :5 degrees C) permafrost regions are 37.80 %, 14.30 %, and 47.90 %, respectively. These new datasets based on the most comprehensive field data to date contribute to an updated understanding of the thermal state and zonation of permafrost in the NH. The datasets are potentially useful for various fields, such as climatology, hydrology, ecology, agriculture, public health, and engineering planning. All of the datasets are published through the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC), and the link is https://doi.org/10.11888/Geocry.tpdc.271190 (Ran et al., 2021a).Peer reviewe

Retrieval of Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Soil Water Content (WC) Using Hyperspectral Remote Sensing under Controlled Glass House Conditions for Spring Barley and Sugar Beet

Leaf area index (LAI) and water content (WC) in the root zone are two major hydro-meteorological parameters that exhibit a dominant control on water, energy and carbon fluxes, and are therefore important for any regional eco-hydrological or climatological study. To investigate the potential for retrieving these parameter from hyperspectral remote sensing, we have investigated plant spectral reflectance (400-2,500 nm, ASD FieldSpec3) for two major agricultural crops (sugar beet and spring barley) in the mid-latitudes, treated under different water and nitrogen (N) conditions in a greenhouse experiment over the growing period of 2008. Along with the spectral response, we have measured soil water content and LAI for 15 intensive measurement campaigns spread over the growing season and could demonstrate a significant response of plant reflectance characteristics to variations in water content and nutrient conditions. Linear and non-linear dimensionality analysis suggests that the full band reflectance information is well represented by the set of 28 vegetation spectral indices (SI) and most of the variance is explained by three to a maximum of eight variables. Investigation of linear dependencies between LAI and soil WC and pre-selected SI's indicate that: (1) linear regression using single SI is not sufficient to describe plant/soil variables over the range of experimental conditions, however, some improvement can be seen knowing crop species beforehand; (2) the improvement is superior when applying multiple linear regression using three explanatory SI's approach. In addition to linear investigations, we applied the non-linear CART (Classification and Regression Trees) technique, which finally did not show the potential for any improvement in the retrieval process