Radar remote sensing of forest and wetland ecosystems in the Central American tropics

Journal Article · Sun May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1994 · Remote Sensing of Environment; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-4257(94)90142-2· OSTI ID:7173076

Pope, K O; Rey-Benayas, J M ^[1]; Paris, J F ^[2]

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1. Geo Eco Arc Research, La Canada (Canada)
2. California State Univ., Fresno, CA (United States). Dept. of Biology

The authors analyzed airborne synthetic aperture radar (AIRSAR) imagery of forest, wetland, and agricultural ecosystems in northern Belize, Central America. The analyses are based upon four biophysical Indices derived from the fully polarimetric SAR data: the volume scattering index (VSI), canopy structure index (CSI), biomass index (BMI), calculated from the backscatter magnitude data, and the interaction type index (ITI), calculated from the backscatter phase data. The authors developed a four-level landscape hierarchy based upon clustering analyses of the 12 index parameters from two test site images. Statistical analyses were used to examine the relative importance of the 12 parameters for discriminating ecosystem characteristics at various landscape scales. The authors found that ITI was the most important index (primarily C band = CITI) for level, vegetated terrain at all levels of the hierarchy. BMI was most important for differentiating between vegetated and nonvegetated areas and between sloping and level terrain. These findings indicate that upper canopy spatial characteristics and flooding in marshlands are more important than biomass in differentiating many tropical ecosystems with radar data. The relative importance of the indices varied with vegetation type; for example, PVSI was the most important for distinguishing between upland forests and regrowth, and PCSI was the most important for differentiating swamp forest types. Finally, the authors evaluated the potential of present and future spaceborne SARs for tropical ecosystem studies based on the results. Most of these SARs are single channel system and will provide limited capability for characterizing biomass and structure of tropical vegetation. The SIR-C/X-SAR and proposed EOS SAR are future spaceborne multifrequency fully polarimetric SAR systems, and they will provide a significant contribution to tropical ecosystem studies.

• OSTI ID: 7173076
• Journal Information: Remote Sensing of Environment; (United States), Vol. 48:2; ISSN 0034-4257
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CENTRAL AMERICA
FORESTS
WETLANDS
REMOTE SENSING
SYNTHETIC-APERTURE RADAR
EVALUATION
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
ECOSYSTEMS
LATIN AMERICA
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
RADAR
RANGE FINDERS
540310* - Environment
Aquatic- Basic Studies- (1990-)
540210 - Environment
Terrestrial- Basic Studies- (1990-)