Abstract
In this study, a parameterization method based on satellite remote sensing and field observations is described and tested for deriving the regional land surface variables, vegetation variables and land surface heat flux densities over heterogeneous landscape. As a case study, the method is applied to the HEIFE area in northwestern China. The regional distribution maps of the NDVI, the MSAVI, vegetation coverage, leaf area index (LAI), surface reflectance, surface temperature, net radiation density, soil heat flux, sensible heat flux and latent heat flux have been determined over the HEIFE area. The derived results have been validated by using the “ground truth”. Comparisons between the results derived from the method proposed in this study, and the previous results (in which the land surface variables and surface heat fluxes were directly derived from the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land—SEBAL) have also been given in this paper. The results show that the more reasonable regional distributions of land surface variables (surface reflectance, surface temperature), vegetation variables (the NDVI, the MSAVI, vegetation coverage and the LAI), net radiation, soil heat flux, sensible heat flux and latent heat flux can be obtained by using the method proposed in this study. Further improvement of this method is also discussed.
