Exploring the spatial relationship between airborne-derived red and far-red sun-induced fluorescence and process-based GPP estimates in a forest ecosystem

Abstract Terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) plays an essential role in the global carbon cycle, but the quantification of the spatial and temporal variations in photosynthesis is still largely uncertain. Our work aimed to investigate the potential of remote sensing to provide new insights into plant photosynthesis at a fine spatial resolution. This goal was achieved by exploiting high-resolution images acquired with the FLuorescence EXplorer (FLEX) airborne demonstrator HyPlant . The sensor was flown over a mixed forest, and the images collected were elaborated to obtain two independent indicators of plant photosynthesis. First, maps of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (F), a novel indicator of plant photosynthetic activity, were successfully obtained at both the red and far-red peaks (r 2  = 0.89 and p 2  = 0.77 and p  −2 and RMSE = 0.51 m 2  m −2 , respectively) through an optimised Look-Up-Table-based inversion of the PROSPECT-4-INFORM radiative transfer model, ensuring the accurate representation of the spatial variation of these determinants of the ecosystem's functionality. The spatial relationships between the measured F and modelled BESS outputs were then analysed to interpret the variability of ecosystem functioning at a regional scale. The results showed that far-red F is significantly correlated with the GPP (r 2  = 0.46, p 2  = 0.43, p  p  > 0.05). The spatial relationships found at high resolution provide valuable insight into the critical role of spatial heterogeneity in controlling the relationship between the far-red F and the GPP, indicating the need to consider this heterogeneity at a coarser resolution.