Vegetation Identification and Biomass Estimation Using AIRSAR Data

Abstract

Abstract Monitoring of vegetation biomass is becoming more important as countries attempt to preserve major carbon reservoirs. We examine the potential use of radar information to quantify forest biomass and classify vegetation type based on data from the New Zealand segment of the 1996 Pacific Rim AIRSAR campaign. Two different types of vegetation were measured: plantation forestry and indigenous scrub. A very significant statistical relationship was found between plantation forestry biomass and measurements derived from AIRSAR data. However, for scrub vegetation, no relationship was found, possibly due to the very small number of ground samples used. In order to separate these vegetation classes from other cover types, two classification procedures, based on the polarimetric characteristics of the backscatter, were trialed. Both approaches produced good classification accuracies for the cover types of interest.