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The Status of Technologies to Measure Forest Biomass and Structural Properties: State of the Art in SAR Tomography of Tropical Forests

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Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography (TomoSAR) is an emerging technology to image the 3D structure of the illuminated media. TomoSAR exploits the key feature of microwaves to penetrate into vegetation, snow, and ice, hence providing the possibility to see features that are hidden to optical and hyper-spectral systems. The research on the use of P-band waves, in particular, has been largely propelled since 2007 in experimental studies supporting the future spaceborne Mission BIOMASS, to be launched in 2022 with the aim of mapping forest aboveground biomass (AGB) accurately and globally. The results obtained in the frame of these studies demonstrated that TomoSAR can be used for accurate retrieval of geophysical variables such as forest height and terrain topography and, especially in the case of dense tropical forests, to provide a more direct link to AGB. This paper aims at providing the reader with a comprehensive understanding of TomoSAR and its application for remote sensing of forested areas, with special attention to the case of tropical forests. We will introduce the basic physical principles behind TomoSAR, present the most relevant experimental results of the last decade, and discuss the potentials of BIOMASS tomography.

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Acknowledegements

All of the results presented within this paper were obtained in the frame of studies funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) in support of the BIOMASS mission, and we acknowledge ESA for the support it gave to the research on SAR Tomography over the last decade. This paper stemmed from the most fruitful Forest Properties Workshop organized in November 2017 in Bern (CH) by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), which we wish to warmly acknowledge for this initiative. We also acknowledge various funding sources including CNES (France, TOSCA) and an “Investissement d’Avenir” program managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, Ref. ANR-10-LABX-25-01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria (DEIB), Politecnico di Milano, Via Ponzio 34/5, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Stefano Tebaldini & Mauro Mariotti d’Alessandro

  2. UMR TETIS, IRSTEA, University of Montpellier, 34093, Montpellier, France

    Dinh Ho Tong Minh

  3. Centre d’Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère, CNRS-CNES-Université Paul Sabatier-IRD, Toulouse Cedex 9, France

    Ludovic Villard & Thuy Le Toan

  4. Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique, UMR5174, CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, IRD, Toulouse Cedex 9, France

    Jerome Chave

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  1. Stefano Tebaldini
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  2. Dinh Ho Tong Minh
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  3. Mauro Mariotti d’Alessandro
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  4. Ludovic Villard
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  5. Thuy Le Toan
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  6. Jerome Chave
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Correspondence to Stefano Tebaldini.

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Tebaldini, S., Ho Tong Minh, D., Mariotti d’Alessandro, M. et al. The Status of Technologies to Measure Forest Biomass and Structural Properties: State of the Art in SAR Tomography of Tropical Forests. Surv Geophys 40, 779–801 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-019-09539-7

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