Forest vertical structure parameters extraction from airborne X-band InSAR data

Abstract

Two extraction models applied in estimating forest height and above-ground biomass (AGB) were developed using the X-band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data, which was acquired from the China airborne SAR system in 2013 covering part of forested area in northeast China. The models using multi-passes InSAR data for the estimations of forest height and AGB were introduced respectively with detailed ground true data derived from both forest plot data and airborne Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data. The estimation results indicated that it is feasible to estimate forest height using X-band InSAR data without the external DEM. Moreover, the model using multi-passes InSAR data could descript the forest structure characteristics and can be used to estimate forest AGB faithfully.