Biophysical Fractional Cover (FCover) composition retrieval in Svalbard Islands with the new generation of satellite sensors

The Arctic ecosystems are pathways and receptors to climate change effects, especially to the rising temperature that is altering the duration of seasonal snow and ice cover patterns. Measuring changes of light absorption and reflectance allows to track the gradients across biophysical properties and provides proxies to understand the cumulative effects on wildlife habitats and human mobility. The new generation of satellite sensors for Earth Observation supports the identification of key monitoring Essential Biodiversity Variables (EVs) and gives insight into the ecosystems discontinuities and emergent properties induced by climate change. Spanning a spatial resolution of 30 to 5 meters and a large amount of hyperspectral bands, PRISMA (Hyperspectral Precursor of the Application Mission), launched in 2019 by the Italian Space Agency, is the only orbiting hyperspectral satellite sensor and it provides images over the latitudes of 79° N. The showcase of the Svalbard Islands (Norway), is used to test the chance of mapping the Fractional Cover (FCover) composition of the landscape over different seasons and to improve the estimation of common Essential Variables for vegetation, substrates, water, snow and ice. The biophysical products obtained describes a wide range of features that can be associated not only to structures and functions of the ecosystems but also to the provision of ecosystem services, such as those related to the water quality and Carbon storage. The discussion is on the chance of reinforcing existing Essential Biodiversity Variables, with proxies for modeling the distribution of the habitat types and the Carbon cycling and it is also on the availability of direct observations for the permafrost and vegetation patterns, the snow seasonality, inland and coastal waters quality.