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ABSTRACTSince each frequency senses distinct features of forest structure, it is attractive to understand whether complementarity of multi-frequency can improve the retrieval of forest above ground biomass (AGB). In this study, 15 combinations of X, C, L, and P band SAR observations were applied in the forest AGB estimation through multivariate linear stepwise regression (MLSR), random forest (RF), and deep learning algorithm based on Keras and TensorFlow algorithms to fully explore their potential and capability for forest AGB retrieval. 21 SAR observations were derived from each frequency and worked as SAR observations for forest AGB estimation. According to the retrieval results using three inversion algorithms and 15 SAR observation combinations, MLSR algorithm with combined L and P band SAR observations performed best with R2 = 0.67 and RMSE = 14.51 Mg/ha. Next was RF algorithm with combination of L and P band, the R2 and RMSE are 0.64 and15.20 Mg/ha, respectively. L and P band are more suitable frequencies for estimating forest AGB, only limited improvements can be achieved by combing them with X and C band. Combination of L and P band can obtain comparable AGB estimation accuracy with using combinations from tri- or quad-frequency SAR observations.

Amid global carbon reduction and climate action, precise forest carbon storage estimation is crucial for comprehending the carbon cycle. This study forecasts P. kesiya var. langbianensis forests’ 2030 stand carbon storage using data from 81 permanent plots across three Yunnan Province forest surveys and remote sensing. Findings: (1) In 2000, storage ranged from 26 to 38 t·hm−2. Central areas had higher values; southwest and southeast exceeded northwest and northeast. By 2010, storage grew eastward, receded northward. By 2020, east storage declined, southwest rose. (2) GM (1,1) model: posterior difference C 0.001, R2 power function model 0.945, GM (1,1) p value 0.999, power function model p value 0.997. (3) Predictions: Cosivarang border forest’s 2030 carbon stock 2850.804 t·hm−2, up 103.463 t·hm−2 from 2000. At 2022’s certified Emission Reduction carbon price of 60 yuan/ton, 2030’s carbon asset value per unit (t·hm−2) approx. 6207.78 Yuan, compared to 2000. Integrating gray system theory, especially GM (1,1) model, robustly addresses “small data and uncertainty” system challenges. Introducing GM (1,1) gray theory in forestry research offers fresh insight into forest carbon sink dynamics.

The penetration capability of electromagnetic wave signal into forest increases with increasing wavelength. SAR data at each frequency senses different components of forest structure. Therefore the biomass distributed at various tree components could be estimated using different radar frequencies. Additionally, the synthesis of multiple SAR frequencies could improve the accuracy in retrieving forest above-ground biomass (AGB). Taking advantage of available X-, C-, L-, and P-band quad-polarimetric SAR images of airborne or spaceborne for the test site located at Genhe national forest scientific field station, we used a Genetic Algorithm and Support Vector Regression optimization algorithm (GA-SVR) to explore the sensitivity of polarimetric observations at various frequencies to forest AGB and effectiveness of AGB retrievals using single-frequency, dual-frequency, triple-frequency, and quad-frequency SAR observation combinations. We found that: (i) Most of the polarimetric observations are sensitive to forest AGB, (ii) GA-SVR performed well in forest AGB retrieval using the single frequency SAR observations or combinations of multi-frequency observations; the highest Acc. value for single-frequency-retrieved results is 75.13% acquired at P-band, with multi-frequency, the highest Acc. values is 77.34% acquired by combining C- and P-band. (iii) For forest AGB retrievals, the single-frequency P-band accuracy is comparable to the combined C- and P-band retrieval accuracy, indicating that the long-wavelength single-frequency P-band is sufficient for an accurate forest AGB retrieval. The findings reconfirmed potential of P-band for forest AGB retrievals, they also demonstrated that the optimal combination of multi-frequency SAR for AGB retrievals is by using a short-wavelength (X/C-) and a long-wavelength (L/P-).

Forest height, as a measure of the quantity and quality of forest resources, plays a significant role in the study of the ecological functions performed by forests. Although the polarimetric synthetic aperture radar interferometry (PolInSAR) technique has evolved as a potent method for forest height inversion, uncertainties still exist in the process of estimating forest height, and the uncertainties in predicted forest height directly lead into the uncertainty of terrestrial carbon stock calculation results. In this study, we took the Random Volume over Ground (RVoG) model as likelihood function and constructed a hierarchical Bayesian framework to calculate and reduce the uncertainty of forest height inversion using L / P band PolInSAR airborne data via RVoG model. Uncertainties resulted from five canopy types and three forest densities were analyzed, respectively. The results showed that among the five different canopy types, L band has the highest prediction accuracy in pure coniferous canopy with Acc. = 0.90. The uncertainty is extremely low for pure forest, with the ratio of uncertainty values of 0.09 for L band and 0.15 for the P band in pure coniferous canopy, and uncertainty values of 0.16 for L band and 0.11 for P band in pure broadleaf canopy, respectively. Furthermore, when the forest density is between 300 and 600 stems/ha, the ratio of uncertainties for the L band is 0.27, whereas the P band is 0.24. As forest density increases, the uncertainty in forest height estimates decreases for both bands. The changes in canopy types and forest density affect forest height estimation uncertainties obviously, the effects are different at each frequency. The forest height inversion accuracy of the L band in pure coniferous canopy surpasses that in other canopy types, with the lowest uncertainty. P band performed well in broadleaf canopy forest height inversion. The inversion uncertainties at both frequencies decrease with increase of forest densities.

Forest aboveground biomass (AGB) and its biomass components are key indicators for assessing forest ecosystem health, productivity, and carbon stocks. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology has great advantages in acquiring the vertical structure of forests and the spatial distribution characteristics of vegetation. In this study, the 56 features extracted from airborne LiDAR point cloud data were used to estimate forest total and component AGB. Variable importance–in–projection values calculated through a partial least squares regression algorithm were utilized for LiDAR-derived feature ranking and optimization. Both leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) and cross-validation methods were applied for validation of the estimated results. The results showed that four cumulative height percentiles (AIH30,AIH40, AIH20, and AIH25), two height percentiles (H8 and H6), and four height-related variables (Hmean, Hsqrt, Hmad, and Hcurt) are ranked more frequently in the top 10 sensitive features for total and component forest AGB retrievals. Best performance was acquired by random forest (RF) algorithm, with R2 = 0.75, root mean square error (RMSE) = 22.93 Mg/ha, relative RMSE (rRMSE) = 25.30%, and mean absolute error (MAE) = 19.26 Mg/ha validated by the LOOCV method. For cross-validation results, R2 is 0.67, RMSE is 24.56 Mg/ha, and rRMSE is 25.67%. The performance of support vector regression (SVR) for total AGB estimation is R2 = 0.66, RMSE = 26.75 Mg/ha, rRMSE = 28.62%, and MAE = 22.00 Mg/ha using LOOCV validation and R2 = 0.56, RMSE = 30.88 Mg/ha, and rRMSE = 31.41% by cross-validation. For the component AGB estimation, the accuracy from both RF and SVR algorithms was arranged as stem > bark > branch > leaf. The results confirmed the sensitivity of LiDAR-derived features to forest total and component AGBs. They also demonstrated the worse performance of these features for retrieval of leaf component AGB. RF outperformed SVR for both total and component AGB estimation, the validation difference from LOOCV and cross-validation is less than 5% for both total and component AGB estimated results.

A reliable evaluation of biomass is a vital prerequisite for realizing the international goal of “emission peak and carbon neutrality”. It is critical to estimate the components of forest biomass, for ecosystem management. Additionally, working on components we may solve the saturation problems in AGB estimation using remote sensing features. In our previous works we proposed GA-SVR (Genetic algorithms and support vector regression) algorithm with polarimetric SAR (Synthetic Aperture Rader) to retrieve total forest Above Ground Biomass (AGB) estimation in our previous works, however, the potential of GA-SVR algorithm applied in component AGB estimation especially using combination of multi-frequency polarimetric SAR features deserves further exploration. In this study, we use quad-polarimetric SAR data at C- and L- bands, extracting the backscatter coefficients and polarimetric features derived from four polarization decomposition methods (Yamaguchi 3-component decomposition, Freeman 2-component decomposition, H/A/alpha decomposition, and TSVM decomposition) as the input to the GA-SVR for forest component AGB estimation. The effectiveness of 66 polarimetric features derived from C-, L-band at each test site was evaluated for forest component AGB prediction at two test sites. The outcomes demonstrated that the GA-SVR attained high estimation accuracy according to the values of coefficient of determination R2, root mean square error, relative root mean square error, mean deviation, mean absolute deviation, mean percentage error, and mean absolute percentage error. The highest attained values of them were 0.77, 1.01 Mg/ha, 23.02%, −0.07 Mg/ha, 0.71 Mg/ha, 0.15%, and 18.42%, respectively. The study reconfirmed the robustness of GA-SVR algorithm and effectiveness of polarimetric SAR features extracted from four decomposition methods for forest total and AGB estimation. It also revealed that the capability of combining C- band L-band SAR polarimetric features for improving forest total and component AGB relies on the difference of forest structures.

Due to the effects of global climate change and altered human land-use patterns, typical shrub encroachment in grasslands has become one of the most prominent ecological problems in grassland ecosystems. Shrub coverage can quantitatively indicate the degree of shrub encroachment in grasslands; therefore, real-time and accurate monitoring of shrub coverage in large areas has important scientific significance for the protection and restoration of grassland ecosystems. As shrub-encroached grasslands (SEGs) are a type of grassland with continuous and alternating growth of shrubs and grasses, estimating shrub coverage is different from estimating vegetation coverage. It is not only necessary to consider the differences in the characteristics of vegetation and non-vegetation variables but also the differences in characteristics of shrubs and herbs, which can be a challenging estimation. There is a scientific need to estimate shrub coverage in SEGs to improve our understanding of the process of shrub encroachment in grasslands. This article discusses the spectral differences between herbs and shrubs and further points out the possibility of distinguishing between herbs and shrubs. We use Sentinel-2 and Gao Fen-6 (GF-6) Wide Field of View (WFV) as data sources to build a linear spectral mixture model and a random forest (RF) model via space–air–ground collaboration and investigate the effectiveness of different data sources, features and methods in estimating shrub coverage in SEGs, which provide promising ways to monitor the dynamics of SEGs. The results showed that (1) the linear spectral mixture model can hardly distinguish between shrubs and herbs from medium-resolution images in the SEG. (2) The RF model showed high estimation accuracy for shrub coverage in the SEG; the estimation accuracy (R2) of the Sentinel-2 image was 0.81, and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was 0.03. The R2 of the GF6-WFV image was 0.72, and the RMSE was 0.03. (3) Texture feature introduced in RF models are helpful to estimate shrub coverage in SEGs. (4) Regardless of the linear spectral mixture model or the RF model being employed, the Sentinel-2 image presented a better estimation than the GF6-WFV image; thus, this data has great potential to monitor shrub encroachment in grasslands. This research aims to provide a scientific basis and reference for remote sensing-based monitoring of SEGs.

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) features have been demonstrated that they have the potentiality to improve forest above ground biomass (AGB) estimation accuracy, especially including polarimetric information. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been successfully implemented in optimal feature identification, while support vector regression (SVR) has great robustness in parameter estimation. The use of combined GAs and SVR can improve the accuracy of forest AGB estimation through simultaneously identifying the optimal SAR features and selecting the SVR model parameters. In this article, 14 SAR polarimetric features were extracted from C-band and L-band full-polarization SAR images and worked as input SAR features, respectively. C-band data was acquired on GaoFen-3 mission, we also call it GF-3 image. L-band data was ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 data. Both feature subsets from GF-3 and ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 and SVR hyper parameters used in the forest AGB estimation were optimized by a GA processing, where 8 different settings of 3 kinds of parameters, as 512 kind of different combinations were applied for SVR hyper parameters searching field. The results of GA-SVR performance using the two datasets were presented and compared with two traditional methods: the algorithm of GA feature selection companied with default SVR parameters (GA+ default SVR), and the algorithm of GA feature selection companied with grid searching for SVR parameter selection (GA+Grid SVR). The results showed that the proposed GA-SVR algorithm improved the forest AGB estimation accuracy with cross-validation coefficient of 80.21% for GF-3 and 71.41% for ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 data.

Abstract Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) image segmentation is a key step in its interpretation. For the targets with time series changes, the single-temporal PolSAR image segmentation algorithm is difficult to provide correct segmentation results for its target recognition, time series analysis and other applications. For this, a new algorithm for multi-temporal PolSAR image segmentation is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the over-segmentation of single-temporal PolSAR images is carried out by the mean-shift algorithm, and the over-segmentation results of single-temporal PolSAR are combined to get the over-segmentation results of multi-temporal PolSAR images. Secondly, the edge detectors are constructed to extract the edge information of single-temporal PolSAR images and fuse them to get the edge fusion results of multi-temporal PolSAR images. Then, the similarity measurement matrix is constructed based on the over-segmentation results and edge fusion results of multi-temporal PolSAR images. Finally, the normalized cut criterion is used to complete the segmentation of multi-temporal PolSAR images. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified based on three temporal PolSAR images of Radarsat-2, and compared with the segmentation algorithm of single-temporal PolSAR image. Experimental results revealed the following findings: (1) The proposed algorithm effectively realizes the segmentation of multi-temporal PolSAR images, and achieves ideal segmentation results. Moreover, the segmentation details are excellent, and the region consistency is good. The objects which can’t be distinguished by the single-temporal PolSAR image segmentation algorithm can be segmented. (2) The segmentation accuracy of the proposed multi-temporal algorithm is up to 86.5%, which is significantly higher than that of the single-temporal PolSAR image segmentation algorithm. In general, the segmentation result of proposed algorithm is closer to the optimal segmentation. The optimal segmentation of farmland parcel objects to meet the needs of agricultural production is realized. This lays a good foundation for the further interpretation of multi-temporal PolSAR image.

Ear height (EH) and ear–plant height ratio (ER) are important agronomic traits in maize that directly affect nutrient utilization efficiency and lodging resistance and ultimately relate to maize yield. However, challenges in executing large-scale EH and ER measurements severely limit maize breeding programs. In this paper, we propose a novel, simple method for field monitoring of EH and ER based on the relationship between ear position and vertical leaf area profile. The vertical leaf area profile was estimated from Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) and Drone Laser Scanner (DLS) data by applying the voxel-based point cloud method. The method was validated using two years of data collected from 128 field plots. The main factors affecting the accuracy were investigated, including the LiDAR platform, voxel size, and point cloud density. The EH using TLS data yielded R2 = 0.59 and RMSE = 16.90 cm for 2019, R2 = 0.39 and RMSE = 18.40 cm for 2021. In contrast, the EH using DLS data had an R2 = 0.54 and RMSE = 18.00 cm for 2019, R2 = 0.46 and RMSE = 26.50 cm for 2021 when the planting density was 67,500 plants/ha and below. The ER estimated using 2019 TLS data has R2 = 0.45 and RMSE = 0.06. In summary, this paper proposed a simple method for measuring maize EH and ER in the field, the results will also offer insights into the structure-related traits of maize cultivars, further aiding selection in molecular breeding.

Forest carbon flux is critical to climate change, and the accurate modeling of forest carbon flux is an extremely challenging task. The remote sensing model (the MODIS MOD_17 gross primary productivity (GPP) model (MOD_17)) has strong practicability and is widely used around the world. The ecological process (the Biome-BioGeochemical Cycles Multilayer Soil Module model (Biome-BGCMuSo)) model can describe most of the vegetation’s environmental and physiological processes on fine time scales. Nevertheless, complex parameters and calibrations pose challenges to the application and development of models. In this study, we optimized all the input parameters of the MOD_17 model for the calibration of the Biome-BGCMuSo model to obtain GPP with continuous spatiality. To determine the contribution of input parameters to the GPP of different forest types, an Extended Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (EFAST) was performed on the Biome-BGCMuSo model firstly. Then, we selected the sample points of each forest type and its different ecological gradients (30 for each type), using the GPP simulation value of the optimized MOD_17 model corresponding to the time and space scale to calibrate the Biome-BGCMuSo model, to drive the calibrated Biome-BGCMuSo, and we simulated the different forest types’ net primary productivity (NPP). According to dendrochronological measurements, the NPP simulation results were verified on the whole regional scale. The results showed that the GPP values of different forest types were highly sensitive to C:Nleaf (C:N of leaf), SLA1 (canopy average specific leaf area in phenological phase 1), and FLNR (fraction of leaf N in Rubisco). The coefficient of determination (R2) between the simulated forest NPP and the measured NPP was 0.64, and the root-mean-square (RMSE) was 26.55 g/C/m2/year. Our study aims to reduce uncertainty in forest carbon fluxes simulated by the Biome-BGCMuSo model, providing feedback for understanding forest ecosystem carbon cycling, vegetation productivity, and climate change.

Forest biomass change monitoring is essential for climate change. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optimal remote sensing (RS) data are two very helpful data sources for forest biomass monitoring and estimation. During the procedure of biomass estimation using RS technique, optimal features selection and estimation models used are two critical steps. This paper therefore focuses on building an operational and robust method of biomass retrieval using optical and SAR RS data. First, random forest (RF) algorithms are used for reducing time-consuming and decreasing computational burden; then, an iterative procedure was embedded in K-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithms for the best optimal feature selection and combination; last, the best feature combinations and KNN models were applied for forest biomass estimation. Moreover, forest type effects and RS feature source effects were considered. The results showed that feature combination of two optical images and the SAR image showed highest estimation accuracy by using the proposed algorithm (R2 = 0.70 for Forest-1, R2 = 0.72 for Forest-2, and R2 = 0.71 for Forest-3; RMSE = 16.18 Mg/ha for Forest-1, RMSE =17.66 Mg/ha for Forest-2, and RMSE = 18.67 Mg/ha for Forest-3, where Forest-1 is natural pure forests of Yunnan Pines, Forest-2 is natural mixed coniferous forests, and Forest-3 is the combination of Forest-1 and Forest-2). With the comparative analysis of proposed algorithm and different non-parametric algorithms, traditional nonparametric algorithms performed better in Forest-1, but worse in Forest-2 and Forest-3, while the proposed algorithm performed no obvious difference in three forest types and using five feature groups. The results revealed that the proposed algorithm was robust in biomass estimation, with almost no feature source and forest structure dependent for biomass estimation.

Accurate and timely knowledge of crop phenology assists in planning and/or triggering appropriate farming activities. The multiple Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) technique shows great potential in crop phenology retrieval for its characterizations, such as short revisit time, all-weather monitoring and sensitivity to vegetation structure. This study aims to explore the potential of averaged Stokes-related parameters derived from multiple PolSAR data in oilseed rape phenology identification. In this study, the averaged Stokes-related parameters were first computed by two different wave polarimetric states. Then, the two groups of averaged Stokes-related parameters were generated and applied for analyzing averaged Stokes-related parameter sensitivity to oilseed rape phenology changes. At last, decision tree (DT) algorithms trained using 60% of the data were used for oilseed rape phenological stage classification. Four Stokes parameters (g0, g1, g2 and g3) and eight sub parameters (degree of polarization m, entropy H, ellipticity angle χ, orientation angle φ, degree of linear polarization Dolp, degree of circular polarization Docp, linear polarization ratio Lpr and circular polarization ratio Cpr) were extracted from a multi-temporal RADARSAT-2 dataset acquired during the whole oilseed rape growth cycle in 2013. Their sensitivities to oilseed rape phenology were analyzed versus five main rape phenology stages. In two groups (two different wave polarimetric states) of this study, g0, g1, g2, g3, m, H, Dolp and Lpr showed high sensitivity to oilseed rape growth stages while χ, φ, Docp and Cpr showed good performance for phenology classification in previous studies, which were quite noisy during the whole oilseed rape growth circle and showed unobvious sensitivity to the crop’s phenology change. The DT algorithms performed well in oilseed rape phenological stage identification. The results were verified at the parcel level with left 40% of the point dataset. Five phenology intervals of oilseed rape were identified with no more than three parameters by simple but robust decision tree algorithm groups. The identified phenology stages agree well with the ground measurements; the overall identification accuracies were 71.18% and 79.71%, respectively. For each growth stage, the best performance occurred at stage S1 with the accuracy of 95.65% for Group 1 and 94.23% for Group 2, and the worst performance occurred at stage S3 and S5 with the values around 60%. Most of the classification errors may resulted from the indistinguishability of S3 and S5 using Stokes-related parameters.

Forest aboveground biomass (AGB), which plays an important role in the study of global carbon cycle, is one of the most important indicators in forest resource monitoring. Thus, how to estimate and map regional forest AGB quickly and accurately attracts more interests of researchers. Tomographic SAR (TomoSAR) is an advanced SAR technique developed in recent years, which has a wide range application in forest AGB estimation. In this paper, we proposed a multi-feature-based modeling method to estimate forest AGB by fitting backscattered power of TomoSAR vertical profile. The procedure of the proposed method includes four parts: (1) Processing TomoSAR data to obtain the backscattered power of vertical profile. (2) Fitting the backscattered power of the vertical profile. (3) Analyzing the fitted backscattered power distribution characteristic of the vertical profile. (4) Extracting the TomoSAR vertical profile features according to the forest AGB measurement factors based on the dendrometry theory. In this paper, we proposed two new features like the forest average height weighted by backscattered power (BPFAH) and the total length of the backscattered power curve (LBPC) as supplement features to estimate forest AGB by TomoSAR technique. We also used the traditional TomoSAR features including backscattered power at specific height layer of vertical power profile (BPV) and forest average height (FAH) for AGB estimation. After the feature selection, the selected features and the ground field data of the forest AGB were used for regression and modeling. Then the forest AGB was estimated and the accuracy was validated. The results showed that the accuracy of proposed method is 90.73%, and RMSE is 42.45 t/ha. Finally, we discussed the performance of our proposed method compared with traditional methods.

In this study, 27 polarimetric parameters were extracted from Radarsat-2 polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) at each growth stage of the rape crop. The sensitivity to growth parameters such as stem height, leaf area index (LAI), and biomass were investigated as a function of days after sowing. Based on the sensitivity analysis, five empirical regression models were compared to determine the best model for stem height, LAI, and biomass inversion. Of these five models, quadratic models had higher R2 values than other models in most cases of growth parameter inversions, but when these results were related to physical scattering mechanisms, the inversion results produced overestimation in the performance of some parameters. By contrast, linear and logarithmic models, which had lower R2 values than the quadratic models, had stable performance for growth parameter inversions, particularly in terms of their performance at each growth stage. The best biomass inversion performance was acquired by the volume component of a quadratic model, with an R2 value of 0.854 and root mean square error (RMSE) of 109.93 g m−2. The best LAI inversion was also acquired by a quadratic model, but used the radar vegetation index (Cloude), with an R2 value of 0.8706 and RMSE of 0.56 m2 m−2. Stem height was acquired by scattering angle alpha ( α ) using a logarithmic model, with an R2 of 0.926 value and RMSE of 11.09 cm. The performances of these models were also analysed for biomass estimation at the second growth stage (P2), third growth stage (P3), and fourth growth stage (P4). The results showed that the models built at the P3 stage had better substitutability with the models built during all of the growth stages. From the mapping results, we conclude that a model built at the P3 stage can be used for rape biomass inversion, with 90% of estimation errors being less than 100 g m−2.

Growth parameters like biomass, leaf area index (LAI) and stem height play an import role for crop monitoring and yield prediction. Compact polarimetric (CP) SAR has shown great potential and similar performance to fully-polarimetric (FP) SAR in crop mapping and phenology retrieval, but its potential in growth parameters inversion has not been fully explored. In this paper, a time series of images of CP SAR was simulated from five FP SAR data gathered during the entire growth season of rape. CP response of 27 parameters, relying on Stokes parameters and their child parameters, decomposition parameters and backscattering coefficients, were extracted and investigated as a function of days after sowing (DAS) during the whole rape growth cycle to interpret their sensitivity to each growth parameter. Then, random forest (RF) was chosen as an automatic approach for the growth parameters inversion method, and its results were compared with traditional single-parameter regression models. Most of the CP parameters showed high sensitivity with growth parameters and great potential for growth parameters inversion. Among all of the regression models, the quadratic regression model showed the best performance for all of the growth parameters inversion, the best result for biomass inversion was the third component of the Stokes parameters (g3) with R2 of 0.765 and RMSE of 73.20 g/m2. For LAI and stem height was one of the Stokes child parameters, the circular polarization ratio (Uc), with R2 of 0.857 and 0.923 and RMSE of 0.66 and 18.71 cm, respectively. RF showed the highest accuracy and smallest RMSE for all of three growth parameters inversion; R2 for biomass, LAI and stem height were 0.93, 0.96 and 0.95, respectively; RMSE were 46.24 g/m2, 0.25 and 13.5 cm, respectively. However, there are also some CP parameters, which showed low sensitivity to growth parameters, that had high importance for RF inversion. The results confirmed the potential of CP data and the RF method in growth parameters inversion, but they also confirmed that it was difficult to give a physical interpretation for the RF inversion model.

In recent decades, most methods proposed for radiometric slope correction involved the backscattering intensity values in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. However, these methods are not fully applicable to quad-polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) matrix data. In this paper, we propose a three-step semi-empirical radiometric terrain correction approach for PolSAR forest area data. The three steps of terrain effects correction are: polarisation orientation angle (POA), effective scattering area (ESA), and angular variation effect (AVE) corrections. We propose a novel method to determine adaptively the “n” value in the third step by minimising the correlation coefficient between corrected backscattering coefficients and the local incidence angle; we then constructed the correction coefficients matrix and used it to correct PolSAR matrix data. PALSAR-2 HBQ (L-band, quad-polarisation) data were used to verify the proposed method. After three-step correction, differences between front and back slopes were significantly reduced. Our results indicate that POA, ESA, and AVE corrections are indispensable steps to producing PolSAR data. In the POA correction step, horizontal–vertical (HV) polarisation was maximally influenced by the POA shift. The max deviation of the POA correction was greater than 1 dB for HV polarisation and approximately 0.5 dB for HH/VV polarisation at an intermediate shift angle (±20°). Based on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-derived forest aboveground biomass (AGB) data, we analysed the relationship between forest AGB and backscattering coefficient; the correlation was improved following the terrain correction. HV polarisation had the best correlation with forest AGB (R = 0.81) and the correlation improved by approximately 0.3 compared to the uncorrected data.