Abstract

Reflection properties of leaves, which can be described by photometric and polarimetric measurements, are the fundamental for vegetation remote sensing. In this study, optical properties of reflected light of leaves from five plant species were taken by a laboratory polarized measurement system. Bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) and bidirectional polarized reflectance factor (BPRF) were used to describe the reflection of leaves. Our results demonstrated that the I parameter reflectance factor (IpRF), which is derived from Stokes parameters, had the similar values as the BRF of all leaves when the extinction ratio of polarized was considered. Then, the IpRF and BPRF of leaves were compared with photometric and polarimetric models, respectively. The good match between measured and modeled results indicated that the combination of BRF and BPRF of leaves can completely characterize the optical properties of the light reflected from leaves. In future studies, polarized measurement should be considered as a valuable method for optical remote sensing, because both intensity and polarization can be obtained via the polarimetric measurement, which deepen the understanding of reflected properties of leaves.