User:Airartisan/Land Surface Phenology

Land surface phenology is the study of plant phenology, the study of the cycle of plant development phases, with the use of satellite sensors.

Overview
Monitoring of plant phenology from space began with the launch of Landsat 1 with the MSS sensor. Other common space-borne sensors for collecting plant phenology data include Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+, SPOT Vegetation, NOAA AVHRR, Terra MODIS, Aqua MODIS, and Envisat MERIS. The spatial resolution of the data collected by these sensors ranges from 8km to 30m.

Land surface phenology data is obtained at a relatively course spatial resolution but has the capacity to cover large geographical areas and long time periods.

Land surface phenology can be measured by the timing (e.g. the day of the year) and spatial distribution of a given phenological event and quantities such as photosynthetic activity or biomass.

Most commonly, land surface phenology focuses on tracking the timing of the start and end of the growing season, the length of the growing season, and the timing of peak plant development.