Season Spotter: Using Citizen Science to Validate and Scale Plant Phenology from Near-Surface Remote Sensing
Season Spotter: Using Citizen Science to Validate and Scale Plant Phenology from Near-Surface Remote Sensing
复制标题
DOI：
10.3390/rs8090726
复制
发表时间：
2016-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Richardson, Andrew D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kosmala, Margaret;Crall, Alycia;Richardson, Andrew D.
迅速变化的气候对生物圈的影响是缓解政策和管理的一个紧迫研究领域。植物物候是气候变化的敏感指标，调节着地表和气候系统之间碳、水和能量通量的季节性，使其成为研究生物圈-大气相互作用的重要工具。为了在区域和大陆范围内监测植物物候，自动近地表照相机正越来越多地用于补充从卫星图像和地面人类观察员获得的物候数据。我们在一个名为Season Spotter的公民科学项目中使用了来自物候相机网络的图像，以调查是否可以从这些图像中获得超出标准的基于颜色的植被指数的信息。我们发现，参与公民科学志愿者在三个方面产生了有用的科学知识：第一，志愿者能够检测到一些，但不是全部，生殖物候事件，连接的水平测量与实地测量。第二，志愿者成功地划分了景观图像中的单个树木，促进了从生物到生态系统的植被指数的缩放。第三，志愿者的数据被用来验证从植被指数计算的物候过渡日期，并确定对现有算法的潜在改进，以实现更好的生物学解释。因此，公民科学与近地表物候遥感相结合，可用于将地面物候观测与卫星传感器数据联系起来，以进行缩放和验证。以改进数据处理和验证遥感图像为目标的精心设计的公民科学项目有望为应对环境科学和地球观测方面的重大挑战提供所需数据。
The impact of a rapidly changing climate on the biosphere is an urgent area of research for mitigation policy and management. Plant phenology is a sensitive indicator of climate change and regulates the seasonality of carbon, water, and energy fluxes between the land surface and the climate system, making it an important tool for studying biosphere-atmosphere interactions. To monitor plant phenology at regional and continental scales, automated near-surface cameras are being increasingly used to supplement phenology data derived from satellite imagery and data from ground-based human observers. We used imagery from a network of phenology cameras in a citizen science project called Season Spotter to investigate whether information could be derived from these images beyond standard, color-based vegetation indices. We found that engaging citizen science volunteers resulted in useful science knowledge in three ways: first, volunteers were able to detect some, but not all, reproductive phenology events, connecting landscape-level measures with field-based measures. Second, volunteers successfully demarcated individual trees in landscape imagery, facilitating scaling of vegetation indices from organism to ecosystem. And third, volunteers' data were used to validate phenology transition dates calculated from vegetation indices and to identify potential improvements to existing algorithms to enable better biological interpretation. As a result, the use of citizen science in combination with near-surface remote sensing of phenology can be used to link ground-based phenology observations to satellite sensor data for scaling and validation. Well-designed citizen science projects targeting improved data processing and validation of remote sensing imagery hold promise for providing the data needed to address grand challenges in environmental science and Earth observation.