Testing Sentinel-2 spectral configurations for estimating relevant crop biophysical and biochemical parameters for precision agriculture using tree-based and kernel-based algorithms

Sentinel-2 spectral configurations, S2-10m and S2-20m, were evaluated for retrieving essential crop biophysical and biochemical parameters and their effect on the performance of three machine learning regression algorithms (MLRAs) in two African semi-arid sites. The results were benchmarked against all spectral bands (S2-All). The results show that the S2-20m was more robust in retrieving Leaf Area Index (LAI) (RMSE _cv : 0.58 m² m⁻², 0.47 m² m⁻²), while the S2-10m provided optimal retrievals Leaf Chlorophyll a + b (LC _ab) (RMSE _cv : 6.89 µg cm⁻², 7.02 µg cm⁻²) for the two sites, respectively. In contrast, S2-20m performed better in retrieving Canopy Chlorophyll Content (CCC) in Bothaville to an RMSE _cv of 35.65 µg cm⁻², while S2-10m yielded relatively lower uncertainties (RMSE _cv of 26.84 µg cm⁻²) in Harrismith. Moreover, various MLRAs were sensitive to the various spectral configurations, and performance varied by site. GPR and XGBoost were more robust, and thus have the most potential for crop biophysical and biochemical parameter retrieval in both sites. Based on the benchmark results, the two configurations can be used independently. The results obtained here are relevant for the rapid development of essential crop biophysical and biochemical parameters for precision agriculture using Sentinel-2’s 10 m or 20 m bands, without the need for resampling.