Multi-sensor remote sensing parameterization of heat fluxes over heterogeneous land surfaces

The parameterization of heat transfer by remote sensing, and based on SEBS scheme for turbulent heat fluxes retrieval, already proved to be very convenient for estimating evapotranspiration (ET) over homogeneous land surfaces. However, the use of such a method over heterogeneous landscapes (e.g. semi-arid regions or agricultural land) becomes more difficult, since the principle of similarity theory is compromised by the presence of different heat sources with various heights. This thesis aims at first to propose and evaluate some models based on vegetation geometry for retrieving the surface roughness length for momentum transfer (z0m), which is a key parameter in the characterization of heat transfer. Such an investigation can only be led at a small scale with very-high resolution remote sensing data, for a precise description of the land surface. Therefore, the second aspect of this work is to determine how to address the characterization of heat transfer for regional studies. Then, the reliability of SEBS for estimating turbulent heat fluxes at large spatial and temporal scales has been evaluated. To do so, the Multi-Scale SEBS approach (MSSEBS) has been implemented for a 2.4 million km2 area including the Tibetan Plateau and the headwaters of the major rivers of East and South Asia. The addition of gap-filled hourly FY-2 LST data to advanced daily averaged net radiation and land surface parameters, allows to compute time-series of land surface ET over the Tibetan Plateau during the period 2008-2010, and on a daily basis.Geoscience and Remote SensingCivil Engineering and Geoscience