Interpretation of remotely sensed data on black spruce and paper birch communities in Alaskan boreal forest enhanced by fire with extended SAIL model

We measured spectral characteristics of black spruce and paper birch communities' elements such as forest floor and leaves to analyze relationships between remotely sensed data and forest structural characteristics in Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed (CPCRW). Remote sensing technique is necessary as a tool for monitoring boreal forest functions and changes including forest fire influences. There are many radiative transfer models of vegetation canopies, however little field measurements of spectrum of boreal forest elements except for studies by Daughtry, Mesearch, or BOREAS Project. This is one of the reasons why we can hardly apply radiative transfer models to interpret satellite data black spruce communities in CPCRW. As a result of SAIL radiative transfer model calculation with these measured values, we proposed charts to interpret atmospherically corrected Landsat TM data of the communities form upper layer leaf area indices, forest floor types, and leaf spectral characteristics.