Differences in vegetation index values using measurements from two azimuth and multiple zenith viewing angles

Vegetation indices based on selected wavelength reflectance measurements are used to represent crop growth and physiological conditions. However, it has been determined that the anisotropic properties of the crop canopy surface can govern both the spectral reflectance and vegetation indices. In this study, in order to investigate how crop surface reflectance and vegetation indices varied according to the direction of the light source and sensor viewing, a hyper -spectrometer of visible to nearinfrared wavelengths mounted on a field goniometer was used at vegetative and reproductive growth stages in rice paddy. It was found that most of the wavelength reflectance measurements produced by the sparse vegetation cover fraction were not sensitive to solar -illumination and sensor -viewing angles. In addition, the reflectance of visible wavelengths was found to be less sensitive to the solar and sensor angles than the red -edge and near -infrared wavelengths. The lowest normalized difference vegetation index value in a day occurred at the nadir sensor -viewing angle before rice heading, but after heading, when ripened grains began to bow, the lowest value was recorded at the sensor zenith angle of 25(degrees). Enhanced vegetation index measurements were found to be more sensitive to the direction of sensor viewing and less affected by sun glint than normalized difference vegetation index measurements. Additional field observation measurements should increase our level of understanding of how vegetation indices change on anisotropic crop surfaces.