1 INTRODUCTION The Leaf Area Index (LAI), defined as one-sided leaf area per unit ground area, is widely used in climate change models, global carbon cycle assessments and ecosystem restoration studies (Hazarika et al., 2005; Sumida et al., 2018; Veryard et al., 2023). In the context of global climate change, measuring spatiotemporal variations in LAI (Jiang et al., 2017) has become an essential need in vegetation ecology and environmental science (Houborg et al., 2016; Ma et al., 2023).
