A radar backscatter model for discontinuous coniferous forests

Abstract

A radar backscattering model for low-to-medium-density woodland in which each tree is treated as an individual backscatterer is described. A forest stand viewed by radar is then an assemblage of scatterers standing on a background in a certain spatial pattern. The backscattering components arising from the various intersections of radar beams with the forest stand are calculated separately, and their Stokes matrices are then added together to achieve the Stokes matrix for total backscattering. Probabilities of radar beams intersecting tree crowns are introduced into the model.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>