Observations of forest cover and forest growing stock volume in Siberia from PALSAR backscatter and coherence data

The properties of PALSAR L-band backscatter and interferometric coherence of Siberian boreal forest are the topic of this paper. The cross-polarized backscatter (HV) is better suited than co-polarized backscatter (HH) for identification of forest cover changes, e.g. clear cuts and fire scars. Coherence acquired during winter also shows a good contrast between forested and nonforested areas. Our investigation shows that both the HH and the HV backscatter present weak sensitivity to the growing stock volume. The coherence is high also in dense forested areas, which seems to somehow limit the usefulness of this observable in the retrieval of growing stock volume. Results from full resolution Fine Beam data products (geocoded to 25 m) and the Kyoto and Carbon data products (50 m) did not result in significant differences.