Measurements of Forest Biomass Change Using L-band Sar Backscatter

Three-year forest above-ground biomass change is to be measured using L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) backscatter. Measurements are also made using P-band backscatter for comparison. The radar data were collected in the airborne BioSAR 2007 and BioSAR 2010 campaigns over the hemiboreal Remningstorp test site in southern Sweden. Regression models for biomass will be developed using reference biomass maps created using airborne laser scanning data and field measurements also collected in the campaigns. A previous study estimated biomass change using P-band data from the same campaigns, and reported root-mean-square errors of about 15% (corresponding to 20 t/ha). Errors for L-band based estimations are expected to be somewhat larger than P-band, due to weaker penetration of the signal into the forest canopy, and the dataset available presents a unique opportunity for thorough comparison of the capability to estimate forest biomass change between the two bands.