Interannual Variations of Vegetation Optical Depth are Due to Both Water Stress and Biomass Changes

Abstract

Abstract Microwave radiometry can be used to measure vegetation water content through vegetation optical depth (VOD). VOD can vary due to changes in water stress alone, but also scales with aboveground biomass. Several studies have therefore interpreted VOD temporal anomalies as linearly proportional to biomass anomalies, neglecting the influence of water stress. Here, we explicitly test this assumption using a new annual‐resolution data set of biomass derived from optical, radar, and lidar remote sensing. Both L‐band and X‐band VOD datasets are tested. Although VOD and biomass variations are highly correlated in space, their temporal anomalies are almost uncorrelated. At regional scale, it is as common for VOD anomalies to be more correlated to root‐zone soil moisture anomalies (a proxy for water stress) than to biomass anomalies as for the opposite to occur. Care should therefore be taken when deriving biomass anomalies from VOD, especially in the absence of any large‐scale biomass disturbances.

Keywords

• vegetation optical depth
• biomass
• relative water content
• SMOS
• AMSR‐E