RT-Simulator: An Online Platform to Simulate Canopy Reflectance from Biochemical and Structural Plant Properties Using Radiative Transfer Models

Vegetation monitoring requires tools to efficiently track key plant traits, such as chlorophyll content. Satellite or aircraft-based Earth Observation is crucial to regularly collect spectral information over extensive vegetated areas. To infer plant traits from these spectral observations, radiative transfer model inversions are needed, but deploying them can be challenging. To address this, we introduce an online radiative transfer (RT)-simulator, to model canopy-level reflectance in crops and forests based on plant traits and canopy properties. The RT-simulator can also resample reflectance as measured by multiple existing and upcoming satellite sensors. It can help both novices and experts in the remote sensing community to easily explore the response of different spectral domains to specific combinations of physiological plant traits. At the same time, the RT-simulator supports efforts to operationally monitor forest health and stress by estimating plant traits through the systematic combination of biophysical models and satellite data.