Sustainable forest management is essential to confront the detrimental impacts of diseases on forest ecosystems. This review highlights the potential of vegetation spectroscopy in improving the feasibility of assessing forest disturbances induced by diseases in a timely and cost-effective manner. The basic concepts of vegetation spectroscopy and its application in phytopathology are first outlined then the literature on the topic is discussed. Using several optical sensors from leaf to landscape-level, a number of forest diseases characterized by variable pathogenic processes have been detected, identified and quantified in many country sites worldwide. Overall, these reviewed studies have pointed out the green and red regions of the visible spectrum, the red-edge and the early near-infrared as the spectral regions most sensitive to the disease development as they are mostly related to chlorophyll changes and symptom development. Late disease conditions particularly affect the shortwave-infrared region, mostly related to water content. This review also highlights some major issues to be addressed such as the need to explore other major forest diseases and geographic areas, to further develop hyperspectral sensors for early detection and discrimination of forest disturbances, to improve devices for remote sensing, to implement long-term monitoring, and to advance algorithms for exploitation of spectral data. Achieving of these goals will enhance the capability of vegetation spectroscopy in early detection of forest stress and in managing forest diseases.

可持续森林管理对于应对疾病对森林生态系统的不利影响至关重要。这篇综述强调了植被光谱学在提高评估疾病引起的森林干扰的可行性方面的潜力，以及及时和具有成本效益的方式。首先概述植被光谱学的基本概念及其在植物病理学中的应用，然后讨论有关该主题的文献。使用从叶子到景观级别的多个光学传感器，在全球许多国家/地区检测、识别和量化了许多以可变致病过程为特征的森林疾病。总的来说，这些审查的研究指出了可见光谱的绿色和红色区域，红边和早期近红外作为对疾病发展最敏感的光谱区域，因为它们主要与叶绿素变化和症状发展有关。晚期疾病状况特别影响短波红外区域，主要与含水量有关。本综述还强调了一些需要解决的重大问题，例如需要探索其他主要森林病害和地理区域，进一步开发用于早期检测和识别森林干扰的高光谱传感器，改进遥感设备，实施长期监测，并推进利用光谱数据的算法。实现这些目标将提高植被光谱学在早期检测森林压力和管理森林病害方面的能力。