Evaluation of Sentinel-2 Red-Edge Bands for Empirical Estimation of Green LAI and Chlorophyll Content

ESA’s upcoming satellite Sentinel-2 will provide Earth images of high spatial, spectral and temporal resolution and aims to ensure continuity for Landsat and SPOT observations. In comparison to the latter sensors, Sentinel-2 incorporates three new spectral bands in the red-edge region, which are centered at 705, 740 and 783 nm. This study addresses the importance of these new bands for the retrieval and monitoring of two important biophysical parameters: green leaf area index (LAI) and chlorophyll content (Ch). With data from several ESA field campaigns over agricultural sites (SPARC, AgriSAR, CEFLES2) we have evaluated the efficacy of two empirical methods that specifically make use of the new Sentinel-2…