Identification

Title

Sensing vegetation growth with reflected GPS signals

Abstract

Estimates of vegetation state are required for hydrometeorological modeling and validation of satellite estimates of land surface conditions. A linkage is described between vegetation growth and ground reflected multipath at GPS stations. Reflections are sensitive to conditions over a ~1000m² area, larger than typical in situ observations but smaller than space-based products. At two agricultural test sites, vegetation height and water content are inversely correlated with the magnitude of ground reflected multipath measured by geodetic-quality GPS stations. This relationship was tested further at Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) network GPS sites, using Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) to gauge vegetation status. NDVI is inversely correlated with the magnitude of multipath at nine sites located in grassland, shrubland and cropland. Multipath variations lag NDVI by approximately three weeks. Multipath statistics from existing sites are calculated daily and could be used to estimate biophysical properties in non-forested regions, which represent ~80% of land area.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7s75h7x

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-06-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright 2010 American Geophysical Union.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-17T15:25:40.821745

Metadata language

eng; USA