Preliminary results of the AfriSAR campaign

Abstract:
The first part of the ESA sponsored AfriSAR campaign was conducted over sites in Gabon in July 2015 with the ONERA airborne system SETHI and the second part will be performed with the DLR airborne system F-SAR in February 2016. The main objective of this campaign is to collect data to support the development of the Earth Explorer candidate mission, BIOMASS. Some specific questions related to the BIOMASS mission still need to be addressed and the AfriSAR data collection strategy was constructed accordingly: -Verify the BIOMASS geophysical inversion method over an African tropical forest, - extend the coverage in the 100t-300t/ha biomass range, -assess the P-Band SAR for deforestation and degradation, - map a large reference area, - assess the impact of seasonal changes on the inversion schemes. The data acquired in July is being processed at ONERA. This contribution will describe the test sites, followed by a summary on the radar instruments. The P-Band images over the test sites will be presented and the on-going analysis will be discussed.