Discriminating and mapping the C3 and C4 composition of grasslands in the northern Great Plains, USA

There is uncertainty about the extent and distribution of grasslands following the C3 and C4 photosynthetic pathways. Since these grasses have an asynchronous seasonal profile it should be possible to estimate and map the C3-C4 composition of grasslands from multi-temporal remote sensing imagery. This potential was evaluated using 30 weekly composite MERIS MTCI images for South Dakota, USA. Derived relationships between the remotely sensed response and composition of grasslands were significant, with R2 ∼ 0.6. It also appears possible to map broad classes of grassland composition, with a three class (high, medium and low C3 cover) classification having an accuracy of 77.8%.