3
THERMAL INFRARED REMOTE
SENSING FOR ANALYSIS OF
LANDSCAPE ECOLOGICAL
PROCESSES: CURRENT INSIGHTS
AND TRENDS
DALE A. QUATTROCHI AND JEFFREY C. LUVALL
3.1 INTRODUCTION
Landscape ecology as a field of study requires data from broad spatial extents that
cannot be collected using field-based methods alone. Remote sensing data and
associated techniques have been used to address these needs, which include identifying and detailing the biophysical characteristics of species habitat, predicting the
distribution of species and spatial variability of species richness, and detecting natural
and human-caused change at scales ranging from individual landscapes to the entire
world (Kerr and Ostrovsky, 2003). This has been exemplified in a growing number of
special issues of journals and journal articles that have focused on remote sensing
applications in landscape ecology (Cohen and Goward, 2004; Gillanders et al., 2008;
Newton et al., 2009; Rocchini, 2010a,b). However, we believe that thermal remote
sensing data have not been widely exploited to their full potential in landscape studies.
Thermal data have important characteristics that can be used to derive quantitative
measurements of surface energy balances and fluxes across the landscape, but
widespread use of these data in landscape ecological research may still be somewhat
enigmatic to some investigators.
34
Scale Issues in Remote Sensing, First Edition. Edited by Qihao Weng.
2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
THERMAL INFRARED REMOTE
SENSING FOR ANALYSIS OF
LANDSCAPE ECOLOGICAL
PROCESSES: CURRENT INSIGHTS
AND TRENDS
DALE A. QUATTROCHI AND JEFFREY C. LUVALL
3.1 INTRODUCTION
Landscape ecology as a field of study requires data from broad spatial extents that
cannot be collected using field-based methods alone. Remote sensing data and
associated techniques have been used to address these needs, which include identifying and detailing the biophysical characteristics of species habitat, predicting the
distribution of species and spatial variability of species richness, and detecting natural
and human-caused change at scales ranging from individual landscapes to the entire
world (Kerr and Ostrovsky, 2003). This has been exemplified in a growing number of
special issues of journals and journal articles that have focused on remote sensing
applications in landscape ecology (Cohen and Goward, 2004; Gillanders et al., 2008;
Newton et al., 2009; Rocchini, 2010a,b). However, we believe that thermal remote
sensing data have not been widely exploited to their full potential in landscape studies.
Thermal data have important characteristics that can be used to derive quantitative
measurements of surface energy balances and fluxes across the landscape, but
widespread use of these data in landscape ecological research may still be somewhat
enigmatic to some investigators.
34
Scale Issues in Remote Sensing, First Edition. Edited by Qihao Weng.
2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.