Mapping forage quality parameters based on Sentinel-2 images and auxiliary data during the senescent stage of alpine grasslands in Tibetan Plateau
The nutrient status of forage during the senescent stage in an alpine grassland ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau provides important information for the precise supplementary feeding of grazing livestock. During the senescent stage, the application of remote sensing technology to understand the spati...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Group
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Geo-spatial Information Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/10095020.2025.2527353 |
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| Summary: | The nutrient status of forage during the senescent stage in an alpine grassland ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau provides important information for the precise supplementary feeding of grazing livestock. During the senescent stage, the application of remote sensing technology to understand the spatial pattern of forage quality parameters accurately is crucial for grazing management. However, few studies have used relatively high-resolution multispectral images to map forage nutritional value, palatability, and digestibility during the senescent stage; the potential and feasibility of this approach have not been effectively confirmed. The present study aims to map the forage crude protein (CP), acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), crude fiber (CF), nitrogen-free extract (NFE), crude fat (EE), relative feed value (RFV) and organic matter digestibility (OMD) in alpine grassland during the senescent stage based on Sentinel-2 spectral variables and auxiliary data (i.e. topography, meteorology and soil). The results indicate that the spectral bands favorable for forage quality parameter retrievals are generally distributed in the red and shortwave infrared regions; the validation accuracy of the proposed optimal model varied among quality parameters (V-R2 of 0.28–0.69), with the model performing well for CP (V-R2 = 0.62, V-RMSE = 1.21%), EE (V-R2 = 0.46, V-RMSE = 0.35%), CF (V-R2 = 0.40, V-RMSE = 2.92%), and NFE (V-R2 = 0.69, V-RMSE = 3.60%) and unsatisfactorily (V-R2 of 0.28–0.39) for NDF, ADF, RFV, and OMD. Moreover, some vegetation indices derived from the wavebands of red, red-edge and near infrared regions and environmental factors such as elevation, radiation and temperature contributed significantly to forage quality parameter estimations. Overall, our study demonstrates that the integration of environmental variables and multispectral remote sensing data can not only improve the prediction performance of forage quality parameters, but also enable large-scale mapping of these parameters, with potential applications for the development of high-precision monitoring methods for forage nutritional status during the senescent stage of alpine grassland. |
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| ISSN: | 1009-5020 1993-5153 |