Remote sensing of photosynthetic processes by photochemical reflectance index (PRI)

The Photochemical Reflectance Index (PRI) has been proposed as a tool for the estimation of leaf and canopy light-use efficiency and photosynthesis from remote-sensing data. The application of the index is based on more than fifteen years of spectroscopic studies at the leaf level, which support it with a sound physiological basis. In the present study, the correlation between PRI and instantaneous light-use efficiency was estimated across a range of vegetation types in the San Rossore Regional Park, a CHRIS-Proba core site. The relationship was also tested over an entire season for a pine forest in the Park, where carbon fluxes have been monitored by eddy-covariance over the last five years. Seasonal changes in photosynthetic potential were also monitored at the site, in order to test the correlation with PRI reported in the literature. In September 2004, estimates of canopy PRI from CHRIS images were compared with leaf-level measurements from 13 plots corresponding to different vegetation types. The results were used to extrapolate leaf-level information to the entire scene.