Statewide Landcover And Trees Study (SLATS) Sentinel-2 - 2019 Foliage Projective Cover (FPC) - Queensland

Foliage projective cover (FPC) is a metric of vegetation cover used in many Australian vegetation classification frameworks. SLATS uses the FPC metric derived from Sentinel-2 imagery to provide broad estimates about the range of tree and shrub densities represented in woody vegetation across Queensland. For some time, Remote Sensing Sciences, has produced FPC using a model applied to Landsat surface reflectance imagery, calibrated by field observations. An updated model was developed which relates field measurements of FPC to 2-year time series of NDVI computed from Landsat seasonal surface reflectance composites. The model is intended to be applied to Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, given their similar spectral characteristics. However, due to insufficient field data coincident with the Sentinel-2 satellite program, the model was fitted on Landsat imagery using a significantly expanded, national set of field data than was used for the previous Landsat FPC model fitting.The FPC model relates the field measured green fraction of mid- and over-storey foliage cover to the minimum value of NDVI calculated from 2-years of Landsat seasonal surface reflectance composites. NDVI is a standard vegetation index used in remote sensing which is highly correlated with vegetation photosynthesis. The model is then applied to analogous Sentinel-2 seasonal surface reflectance composites to produce an FPC image at Sentinel-2 spatial resolution (i.e. 10m) using the radiometric relationships established between Sentinel-2 and Landsat in Flood (2017). This is intended to represent the FPC for that 2-year period rather than any single date, hence the date range in the dataset file name.The dataset is generally expected to provide a reasonable estimate of the range of FPC values for any given stand of woody vegetation, but it is expected there will be over- and under-estimation of absolute FPC values for any specific location (i.e. pixel) due to a range of factors. The FPC model is sensitive to fluctuations in vegetation greenness, leading to anomalies such as high FPC on irrigated pastures or locations with very green herbaceous or grass understoreys. A given pixel in the FPC image, represents the predicted FPC in the season with the least green/driest vegetation cover over the 2-year period assumed to be that with the least influence of seasonally variable herbaceous vegetation and grasses on the more seasonally stable woody FPC estimates. The two-year period was used partly because it represents a period relative to tree growth but was also constrained due to the limited availability of imagery in the early Sentinel-2 time series. The FPC dataset is constrained by the woody vegetation extent dataset for the FPC year. Flood, N. 2017. Comparing Sentinel-2A and Landsat 7 and 8 using surface reflectance over Australia. Remote Sensing, 9 (7), 659.