Forest Change Analysis by means of Pol-InSAR Measurements at Land P-band

Abstract:
This work focuses on the detection and interpretation of forest structural changes by exploiting jointly polarimetric and interferometric SAR (Pol-InSAR) acquisitions. Using Pol-InSAR measurements and following a two-layer model assumption, the response from the forest canopy can be first decomposed into a ground and a volume layer. Then, a polarimetric change analysis can be applied over the separated ground and volume scattering components acquired at different times. The analysis of the detection and interpretation of the type of forest (structural) changes is carried out by exploiting L- and P-band data acquired by DLR’s F-SAR sensor over the Traunstein forest in the context of the TMPSAR campaign. The results corroborate that the decomposition of the forest into simpler layers eases the interpretation of the changes.