Schlund, M., Scipal, K. and Quegan, S. orcid.org/0000-0003-4452-4829 (2018) Assessment of a power law relationship between P-band SAR backscatter and aboveground biomass and its implications for BIOMASS mission performance. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 11 (10). pp. 3538-3547. ISSN 1939-1404
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of a logarithmic relationship between P-band cross-polarized backscatter from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and aboveground biomass (AGB) across different forest types based on multiple airborne datasets. It is found that the logarithmic function provides a statistically significant fit to the observed relationship between HV backscatter and AGB. While the coefficient of determination varies between datasets, the slopes, and intercepts of many of the models are not significantly different, especially when similar AGB ranges are assessed. Pooled boreal and pooled tropical data have slopes that are not significantly different, but they have different intercepts. Using the power law formulation of the logarithmic relation allows estimation of both the equivalent number of looks (ENL) needed to retrieve AGB with a given uncertainty and the sensitivity of the AGB inversion. The campaign data indicates that boreal forests require a larger ENL than tropical forests to achieve a specified relative accuracy. The ENL can be increased by multichannel filtering, but ascending and descending images will need to be combined to meet the performance requirements of the BIOMASS mission. The analysis also indicates that the relative change in AGB associated with a given backscatter change depends only on the magnitude of the change and the exponent of the power law, and further implies that to achieve a relative AGB accuracy of 20% or better, residual errors from radiometric distortions produced by the system and environmental effects must not exceed 0.43 dB in tropical and 0.39 dB in boreal forests.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Aboveground biomass (AGB) retrieval; BIOMASS mission; forestry; P-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematics and Statistics (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Natural Environment Research Council N/A European Space Agency 4000116784/16/NL/CT |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 03 Jul 2020 08:19 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2020 09:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1109/jstars.2018.2866868 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:162754 |