Remote sensing of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence: Review of methods and applications

Interest in remote sensing (RS) of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (F) by terrestrial vegetation is motivated by the link of F to photosynthetic efficiency which could be exploited for large scale monitoring of plant status and functioning. Today, passive RS of F is feasible with different prototypes and commercial ground-based, airborne, and even spaceborne instruments under certain conditions. This interest is generating an increasing number of research projects linking F and RS, such as the development of new F remote retrieval techniques, the understanding of the link between the F signal and vegetation physiology and the feasibility of a satellite mission specifically designed for F monitoring. This paper reviews the main issues to be addressed for estimating F from RS observations. Scattered information about F estimation exists in the literature. Here, more than 40 scientific papers dealing with F estimation are reviewed and major differences are found in approaches, instruments and experimental setups. Different approaches are grouped into major categories according to RS data requirements (i.e. radiance or reflectance, multispectral or hyperspectral) and techniques used to extract F from the remote signal. Theoretical assumptions, advantages and drawbacks of each method are outlined and provide perspectives for future research. Finally, applications of the measured F signal at the three scales of observation (ground, aircraft and satellite) are presented and discussed to provide the state of the art in F estimation.