Comparer des méthodes

	Indice de Surface Foliaire	Modèles de croissance des cultures (DSSAT/APSIM)	Équation de Penman-Monteith
Domaine	Agronomie	Agronomie	Agronomie
Famille	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Année d'origine	1947	1993-2003	1948-1965
Auteur d'origine	Donald J. Watson	James W. Jones, Gerbrand T. Hoogenboom (DSSAT); Brian A. Keating, Peter S. Carberry (APSIM)	Howard Latimer Penman, John Monteith
Type	Plant morphometric measurement	Mechanistic crop simulation pipeline	Mechanistic evapotranspiration model
Source fondatrice	Watson, D. J. (1947). Comparative physiological studies on the growth of field crops: I. Variation in net assimilation rate and leaf area between species and varieties, and within and between years. Annals of Botany, 11(43), 375-407.	Jones, J. W., Hoogenboom, G., Porter, C. H., et al. (2003). The DSSAT cropping system model. European Journal of Agronomy, 18(3-4), 235-265.	Penman, H. L. (1948). Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 193(1032), 120-145.
Alias	LAI, Leaf area, Canopy structure	DSSAT, APSIM, Crop Simulation Model	PM Equation, FAO-56 PM, Evapotranspiration Model
Apparentées	3	3	3
Résumé	Leaf Area Index (LAI) is a dimensionless quantity that measures the total one-sided area of leaves per unit ground area covered by a canopy. It quantifies canopy density and structure: LAI = 0 for bare soil, LAI = 1 for a thin crop, LAI = 3-6 for dense cereal or grass canopies, and LAI > 8 for dense forest. LAI is a key variable in crop growth models, evapotranspiration estimation, and remote sensing because it directly controls light interception, photosynthesis, and water loss from vegetation.	Crop growth models are mechanistic simulation systems designed to predict crop development, biomass accumulation, and yield under varying environmental and management conditions. DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer) and APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) are the most widely used platforms, developed in the 1990s-2000s to support agronomic decision-making and climate adaptation research.	The Penman-Monteith equation is a mechanistic model for estimating evapotranspiration (ET), the combined loss of water from soil and plant canopies to the atmosphere. First proposed by Penman (1948) for bare soil and water surfaces, then extended by Monteith (1965) to incorporate plant resistance to water vapor diffusion, it has become the international standard for water balance studies, crop water requirement calculation, and hydrological modeling.