Generation of a Species-Specific Look-Up Table for Fuel Moisture Content Assessment

This study involved the generation of a species-specific Look-Up Table (LUT) for the retrieval of Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) in natural areas dominated by Quercus ilex (Holm oak). Parameter combinations observed in drying Q. ilex samples were used as inputs into the linked PROSPECT and SAILH Radiative Transfer Models (RTM) to avoid unrealistic simulated spectra in the LUT. Terra/MODIS reflectance data, extracted over five plots dominated by Q. ilex, were used to carry out the LUT inversion. This inversion was based on the search for the minimum relative root mean square error (RMSErho*) between observed and simulated reflectance found in the LUT. Different inversion options were tested in order to search for the optimal spectral sampling necessary for accurately estimating FMC. The minimum number of solutions required for the calculation of the estimated FMC was also investigated. The retrieval performance was evaluated with FMC values measured at the five study plots. The most accurate FMC estimation was obtained when using the normalized difference infrared index (NDII6 ) and selecting the ten best cases as the solution (RMSE=26.28%). Finally, a non-oak-specific LUT (generic LUT) was used in the same way to evaluate whether or not the species-specific LUT retrieved FMC more accurately. The results showed that the species-specific LUT provided more accurate FMC estimations than the generic LUT. Only when the number of solutions was higher than 35 was the accuracy of the two LUT similar. Future work will focus on the possibility of generating a LUT adapted to a wider range of species based on data extracted from field measurements and literature.