Assessing the Impact of Precipitation on L-band SAR Forest Observation: An ALOS-2 Big Data Case Study in the Tropics
Conference: EUSAR 2021 - 13th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar
03/29/2021 - 04/01/2021 at online
Proceedings: EUSAR 2021
Pages: 6Language: englishTyp: PDF
Authors:
Koyama, Christian N.; Watanabe, Manabu; Tadono, Takeo (Tokyo Denki University, Ishizaka, Hatoyama, Saitama, Japan)
Shimada, Masanobu (Tokyo Denki University, Ishizaka, Hatoyama, Saitama, Japan & Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - JAXA, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan)
Abstract:
Forest monitoring is a prime mission for SAR earth observation. However, the reliability of applications like biomass estimation and deforestation detection is largely hampered by spatial-temporal backscatter fluctuations. In the tropics, these variabilities are mainly driven by the rainfall regime. In preparation for the golden age of L-band SAR, this paper presents the first comprehensive study on the impact of rainfall on L-band EO data. Based on a big data analysis using 300 TB of ALOS-2 images together with 1.5 billion rainfall datasets, pantropic gamma0/rainfall correlation maps were produced which provide all-new information on the precipitation effects in SAR imaging.