Applicability of leaf area index products for boreal regions of Sweden

Leaf area index (LAI) of boreal ecosystems was estimated with optical instruments at the Laxemar and the Forsmark investigation areas in Sweden. The aim was to study relationships between LAI and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and to evaluate the applicability of the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) LAI product for small boreal regions. Relationships between optically-estimated LAI and NDVI were significant for different forest types in Laxemar and for Forsmark, effective LAI was correlated to the NDVI for all sites. NDVI-estimated LAI was used for evaluating accuracy of the MODIS LAI product and the comparison showed no correlation in Forsmark, whereas they were correlated in Laxemar. MODIS LAI was, on average, 2.28 higher than NDVI-based LAI, and it showed larger scatter. Scale issues were the main explanation for the high MODIS LAI, since heterogeneous landscapes with open areas were seen as forest in the large pixels of the MODIS LAI product.