PhenoSat
A software tool to extract phenological information from satellite vegetation index time-series

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Temporal vegetation profiles based on remotely sensed data provide valuable information for understanding land cover dynamics, generally interpreted by vegetation phenological events.

Over the last years, the number of remote sensing sensors capable of acquiring phenological appropriate temporal data has increasing considerably. Most of these sensors provide temporal vegetation data associated to a specific vegetation index (VI). The VI profile can be used to extract the phenological information required to better analyse and understand the biological changes in vegetation.
pheno steps

PhenoSat is a software tool that allows to extract satellite VI metrics related to vegetation phenology in a simple and easy way. PhenoSat receives as input the yearly vegetation index images to process, and outputs the data processing steps and the phenological information.
PhenoSat extracts information of seven phenological stages for the main growing season. It is also possible to record information for a double growth season or regrowth occurrence. This option allows obtaining information about the start and maximum of this period.
Adverse weather conditions such as unseasonal snow, extreme heat or irregular precipitation could result in a false vegetation regrowth. The selection of a sub-interval, based on vegetation dynamics knowledge, could help to deal with the false report of regrowth in particular natural environments (high latitudes or boreal regions), leading to a better analysis and more consistent results. For the previous reasons, a new feature was added to PhenoSat that allows the possibility to select an annual time-series sub-interval. This selection reduces the volume of data to be processed, improves the fitting process and leads to more reliable results.

Different experiments were already done with PhenoSat, using the vineyard, semi-natural meadows and low shrublands vegetation types. In all experiments, PhenoSat presented accurate and consistent results, compared with ground-based measures. This tool proved capable of solving some limitations present in other software tools, such as: the detection of a double growth season, with the extraction of phenological parameters for this period; and the possibility to select an in-season region of interest. This last feature proved to be a valuable tool for vineyard monitoring and can enlarge the PhenoSat application to crops with discontinuous canopy, like forestry and deciduous fruit trees.


PhenoSat has been developed in Matlab and it is free for download in the software page. More improvements will be added to PhenoSat and the new versions will be updated here. Any questions or suggestions are welcome.
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