Relating Amazon forest biomass to PolInSAR extracted features

Abstract

The combination of polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) with the interferometry capability (InSAR) enables the extraction of new features that enhances the development of biomass estimation models. This work aims in demonstrating the importance of the simultaneous use of several types of SAR features for estimating forest biomass. The study site is São Gabriel da Cachoeira, located in the Brazilian Amazon. Forest inventory was conducted by INPA and a sample of 29 plots have been used to compute above and below-ground biomass. Polarimetric interferometric X and P band SAR data (PolInSAR) were acquired by the DSG's Amazon Radiography Project. After the initial analysis of the data and feature extraction, analyses on the relationship between biomass and SAR features have been done. Only 4 out of the 122 features extracted presented a significant correlation with biomass and each of them were related to a structural characteristic of the forest. © 2013 IEEE.