Non-Lambertian Corrected Albedo and Vegetation Index for Estimating Land Evapotranspiration in a Heterogeneous Semi-Arid Landscape

Abstract

The application of energy balance algorithms to remotely sensed imagery often fails to account for surface roughness variation with diverse land cover, resulting in poor resolution of evapotranspiration (ET) variations. Furthermore, the assumption of a horizontally homogeneous Lambertian surface reflecting energy equally in all directions affects the calculations of albedo and vegetation index. The primary objective of this study is to improve the accuracy of the estimation and discrimination of ET among different land cover types in Southern New Mexico from ASTER datasets, by formulating the spatial variation of non-Lambertian reflectance using a wavelength-dependent Minnaert function.