**Vegetation Measurements**

From our detailed vegetation map (generated at 1:2000 scale), vegetation over the 10 x 10 km2 area shows a scarce diversity of vegetation species. Within the area, the major vegetation uses are vineyard, almond- and olive-trees, coniferous forests, matorral shrubs (Thymus vulgaris, Rosmarinus officinalis, Quercus coccifera, Genista scorpius, Ulex parviflorus, Ramnus licioides, Stipa tenacissima, Juniperus communis), and very very scarce areas of cereals (Zea mays and Avena sativa).

Vegetation parameter sampling is not needed to be too intensive. However, accurate estimation of vegetation stage should be achieved through simple measurements over well chosen areas:
� Vegetation height
� Phenologic stage (number of leaves in vineyards/plant, etc) in some fields
� Digital photographs giving general information on the phenology (in orchards)
� LAI measurements in shrubs and matorral areas
� Alometric parameter sampling in tree areas to relate plant dimensions to vegetation characteristics which are required as inputs for the retrieval models
� Vegetation water content sampling

LAI and FVC maps over the area (August 2006, courtesy of EOLAB)

For each of the dominant vegetation types, the sampling to be performed will consist of: branches and leaves of almond, olive, Holm Oak and pine trees, and complete individuals of shrubs. In these samples we will measure all the dimensional parameters and laboratory analysis to estimate biomass.