Monitoring vegetation responses to heatwaves using novel remote sensing techniques

The increasing frequency and amplitude of extreme climatic events may decline ecosystem productivity and disturb the global carbon cycle. Recent and upcoming advances in remote sensing technology, such as hyperspectral reflectance and chlorophyll sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) missions, are boosting research on the monitoring of vegetation responses to heat and drought stress. To understand the impacts of stress on vegetation and the corresponding optical signals that can be sensed from space, it is essential to monitor the continuous dynamics of ecosystem carbon and water fluxes and optical signal responses to environmental changes on the ground.

We collected a unique dataset of synergistic observations of remote sensing and carbon-water flux measurements from multiple field sites of different vegetation types. This dataset elucidated variations of physiology, fluxes, and optical signals, including SIF and spectral vegetation indices. For example, in light-sensitive beech forests in Germany, we found that photoprotection is generally active. Gross primary productivity (GPP) and surface conductance (Gs) clearly decreased when heatwaves occurred. On the contrary, chlorophyll content changed only marginally, which was reflected by minimal changes in the chlorophyll index at red edge (CIred). The photochemical reflectance index (PRI), related to non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) via xanthophyll´s cycle, was sensitive to flash heat stress and related to vapor pressure deficit (VPD). But for longer and lower intensity of stress in another event, PRI only changed marginally. SIF was more sensitive to incident radiation (PPFD), but did not decrease with increasing air temperature (Ta) and VPD. However, SIF yield (the ratio of SIF and absorbed photosynthetically active radiation) decreased significantly during the heatwave. In contrast, in the light and heat-tolerant rice paddy in China, we observed that vegetation did not show negative effects at the early growing stage (nutritive growth) during an extreme heatwave (Ta>35 ̊C). Due to the high relative humidity (from evaporated water), VPD remained low despite the high temperatures. GPP increased slightly accompanied by a small decrease of Gs as VPD slightly increased. SIF, SIF yield, and PRI noticeably increased with increasing CIred, indicating that heat might have accelerated the physiology rather than stressed plants in the rice paddy, which could be due to an overall higher temperature optimum compared to the European beach forest.

Our results demonstrate that water supply shortage combined with heat waves can cause immediate down-regulation of photosynthesis and that the new remote sensing missions could detect this vegetation response. However, if the water supply is abundant during the heatwave, responses of both physiological and remote sensing parameters may not be sensitive to heat stress. Due to species and ecosystem differences in terms of heat resistance, the global response of vegetation remains hard to predict indicating the need to remotely monitor these responses in order to improve process-based models. The outcomes of this work will possibly provide new insights on the utilization of novel optical remote sensing information for vegetation monitoring during extreme events.