- Related Research Areas
- Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems
Remote sensing of vertical structure bears on forest biomass, ecosystem function, and biodiversity. Most interferometric SAR (InSAR) proof-of-concept tests of structure and biomass estimation to date involve sufficient baseline length and/or polarization diversity to estimate structural parameters at the few-m level. Some involve uniform forests in relatively flat terrain. All use fixed baselines or repeat-track interferometry (RTI) in which temporal decorrelation-changes in the scene between data acquisitions defining a baseline-is essentially zero. However, for a single-spacecraft, repeat-track mission such as the proposed DESDynI, smaller observation sets affected by temporal decorrelation may yield performance characteristics quite different from previous results. This proposal therefore bridges the gap between the performance of published InSAR tests and that of a repeat-track, L-band mission. Structure- and biomass-estimate performance will be evaluated as a function of realistic operation and analysis modes by 1) assessing the limiting or best possible accuracy of structure and biomass estimation over a variety of complex tropical forests, with many repeat-track polarimetric baselines; and 2) assessing the scenario-dependent accuracy for smaller numbers of baselines which may characterize DESDynI. We will use airborne L-band RTI InSAR data taken in 2004 over the wet tropical forests of La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, data from the currently flying Japanese PALSAR over Costa Rica, and PALSAR data in Brazil. The La Selva data set will determine limiting accuracy by using many polarimetric baselines selected for minimal temporal decorrelation. Subsets of the data, with larger temporal decorrelation signatures, will simulate possible configurations of DESDynI, supplemented by L-band InSAR data from PALSAR. In order to sample a diversity of tropical forests, we will estimate vegetation structure and biomass using PALSAR data combined with field work at moist tropical forests of the Tapajós National Forest and Purus River Basin in Brazil.
Project PI: Robert Treuhaft/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 138-2 12, Pasadena, CA 91109
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