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The inversion of forest height using the RVoG (Random Volume over Ground) model is susceptible to overestimation or underestimation due to three error sources, propagating inaccuracies to the estimated forest height. Furthermore, variations in the height and density of the scenario could impact how well the RVoG three-stage inversion performs. This work utilizes the L-band single-baseline full polarization interferometric dataset as its basis. It optimally applies the CRITIC (Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) method to the first stage of a three-stage process. This approach aims to overcome the issues mentioned above and enhance the accuracy of forest parameter estimation. A CRITIC weighted least squares temporal decoherence iterative algorithm is also proposed for the characteristics of the spaceborne data, in combination with the temporal decoherence algorithm of previous research. The proposed approach is tested and applied to both simulated and actual data. The optimization approach is first assessed using four simulated datasets that simulate coniferous forests with different densities and heights. The preliminary findings suggest that optimizing the complex coherence fitting process through the weighted least squares method enhances the accuracy of ground phase estimation and, consequently, improves the accuracy of the three-stage approach for inverting forest height. The ground phase estimation results for low forest height consistently remained within 0.02 rad, with a root mean square error (RMSE) below 0.05 rad, and no saturation occurred with increasing forest density. The enhanced algorithm outperforms the traditional technique in terms of accuracy in ground phase estimation. Subsequently, the optimized approach is applied to ALOS-2 spaceborne data, proving more successful than the conventional algorithm in reducing the RMSE of forest height. The findings illustrate the method's superior inversion performance, obtaining an accuracy exceeding 80% in both the test and validation sets. The validation set's RMSE is approximately 2.5 m, and the mean absolute error (MAE) is within 2 m. Moreover, it is observed that to counteract the uncertainty in temporal decoherence induced by climate change, a larger temporal baseline necessitates a larger random motion compensation term and phase offset term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inversion of forest height using the RVoG (Random Volume over Ground) model is susceptible to overestimation or underestimation due to three error sources, propagating inaccuracies to the estimated forest height. Furthermore, variations in the height and density of the scenario could impact how well the RVoG three-stage inversion performs. This work utilizes the L-band single-baseline full polarization interferometric dataset as its basis. It optimally applies the CRITIC (Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) method to the first stage of a three-stage process. This approach aims to overcome the issues mentioned above and enhance the accuracy of forest parameter estimation. A CRITIC weighted least squares temporal decoherence iterative algorithm is also proposed for the characteristics of the spaceborne data, in combination with the temporal decoherence algorithm of previous research. The proposed approach is tested and applied to both simulated and actual data. The optimization approach is first assessed using four simulated datasets that simulate coniferous forests with different densities and heights. The preliminary findings suggest that optimizing the complex coherence fitting process through the weighted least squares method enhances the accuracy of ground phase estimation and, consequently, improves the accuracy of the three-stage approach for inverting forest height. The ground phase estimation results for low forest height consistently remained within 0.02 rad, with a root mean square error (RMSE) below 0.05 rad, and no saturation occurred with increasing forest density. The enhanced algorithm outperforms the traditional technique in terms of accuracy in ground phase estimation. Subsequently, the optimized approach is applied to ALOS-2 spaceborne data, proving more successful than the conventional algorithm in reducing the RMSE of forest height. The findings illustrate the method’s superior inversion performance, obtaining an accuracy exceeding 80% in both the test and validation sets. The validation set’s RMSE is approximately 2.5 m, and the mean absolute error (MAE) is within 2 m. Moreover, it is observed that to counteract the uncertainty in temporal decoherence induced by climate change, a larger temporal baseline necessitates a larger random motion compensation term and phase offset term.

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (Pol-InSAR) based forest height estimation for ecosystem monitoring and management has been developing rapidly in recent years. Spaceborne Pol-InSAR systems with long temporal baselines of several days always lead to severe temporal decorrelation, which can cause a forest height overestimation error. However, most forest height estimation studies have not considered the change in dielectric property as a factor that may cause temporal decorrelation with a long temporal baseline. Therefore, it is necessary to propose a new method that considers dielectric fluctuations and random motions of scattering elements to compensate for the temporal decorrelation effect. The lack of ground truth for forest canopy also needs a solution. Unsupervised methods could be a solution because they do not require the use of true values of tree heights as the ground truth to calculate their estimation accuracies. This paper aims to present an unsupervised forest height estimation method called Dielectric Fluctuation and Random Motion over Ground (DF-RMoG) to improve accuracy by considering the dielectric fluctuations and random motions. Its performance is investigated using Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS)-1 Pol-InSAR data acquired over a German forest site with temporal intervals of 46 and 92 days. The authors analyze the relationship between forest height and different parameters with DF-RMoG and conventional models. Compared with conventional models, the proposed DF-RMoG model significantly reduces the overestimation error due to temporal decorrelation in forest height estimation according to its lowest average forest height. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique based on time–frequency (TF) analysis has great potential for mapping the forest canopy height model (CHM) at regional and global scales, as it benefits from the additional InSAR observations provided by the sublook decomposition. Meanwhile, due to the wider swath and higher spatial resolution of single-polarization data, InSAR has a higher observation efficiency in comparison with PolInSAR. However, the accuracy of the CHM inversion obtained by the TF-InSAR method is attenuated by its inaccurate coherent scattering modeling and uncertain parameter calculation. Hence, a new approach for CHM estimation based on single-baseline InSAR data and sublook decomposition is proposed in this study. With its derivation of the coherent scattering modeling based on the scattering matrix of sublook observations, a time–frequency based random volume over ground (TF-RVoG) model is proposed to describe the relationship between the sublook coherence and the forest biophysical parameters. Then, a modified three-stage method based on the TF-RVoG model is used for CHM retrieval. Finally, the two-dimensional (2-D) ambiguous error of pure volume coherence caused by residual ground scattering and temporal decorrelation is alleviated in the complex unit circle. The performance of the proposed method was tested with airborne L-band E-SAR data at the Krycklan test site in Northern Sweden. Results show that the modified three-stage method provides a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 5.61 m using InSAR and 14.3% improvement over the PolInSAR technique with respect to the classical three-stage inversion result. An inversion accuracy of RMSE = 2.54 m is obtained when the spatial heterogeneity of CHM is considered using the proposed method, demonstrating a noticeable improvement of 32.8% compared with results from the existing method which introduces the fixed temporal decorrelation factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar (GBSAR) applications demand preliminary analysis to select areas with high-quality signal. That is, areas in which the phase can be processed to extract the desired information. The interferometric coherence and the amplitude dispersion index are important tools widely used in the literature to assess the quality of GBSAR images. So far, no direct relation has been found between the two. Indeed, they are parameters of different natures: amplitude dispersion index is calculated with only amplitude values, while coherence provides information also on the signal phase. The purpose of this article is to find a relation between the two parameters. Indeed, the amplitude dispersion index provides some practical advantages if compared to coherence estimators, especially to perform fast preliminary analysis. In this article, a theoretical relation between amplitude dispersion index and coherence is retrieved. GBSAR measurements acquired in different scenarios, at different working frequencies are presented and used to validate such a relation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the upcoming spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions (BIOMASS, LuTan-1, NISAR, and TanDEM-L), it will become possible to extract vegetation height at a global scale by utilizing spaceborne low-frequency (L- and P-band) polarimetric synthetic aperture radar interferometry (PolInSAR) data. However, in the context of single-baseline parameter retrieval by the random volume over ground (RVoG) model, three main error sources that affect the inversion accuracy should be carefully considered, i.e., the ground scattering contribution, the spatial baseline configuration, and the temporal decorrelation (the main part of non-volume decorrelation). To make the estimation more reliable, several kinds of multibaseline PolInSAR inversion methods have been proposed over the past few years and have achieved improved inversion performances. Dual-baseline inversion effectively avoids the ambiguity of the ground contribution, whereas the performance is highly dependent on the appropriate combination of two spatial baselines as well as the mitigation of the non-volume decorrelation. In this study, we conducted in-depth research into the effect of these influencing factors on dual-baseline inversion, aiming to provide effective guidance on dual-baseline combination selection among multibaseline data. Accordingly, a novel multibaseline inversion scheme (MBLFPI) suitable for low-frequency PolInSAR data is proposed in this paper. The significant advantage of the new method is that the three aforementioned error sources can be taken into account simultaneously, without relying on external data. The proposed scheme was validated using L- and P-band SAR data acquired by the DLR's E-SAR/F-SAR and ONERA's SETHI systems, as well as corresponding light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data collected during the BioSAR-2008, AfriSAR-2016, and TropiSAR-2009 campaigns. A series of experiments was performed to evaluate the applicability and generalizability of the proposed method. The results showed that this innovative scheme produced forest height maps with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 2.37 m (R2 = 0.88) and 3.13–4.43 m (R2 = 0.35–0.94) in the L-band and P-band scenarios (boreal and tropical forest), respectively, indicating a significant improvement over the three conventional multibaseline methods and pure dual-baseline inversion. The comprehensive analysis provided in this paper should assist with and provide strong support for SAR system and mission design, and the proposed scheme could be considered a promising way for future spaceborne missions to invert vegetation parameters at a global scale. • A generalizable MB method is proposed for global forest mapping by BIOMASS and LT-1. • Three general issues in low-frequency PolInSAR inversion are simultaneously solved. • B1 is more sensitive than B2 in dual-baseline PolInSAR geometric inversion method. • An error model of dual-baseline forest height inversion is constructed. • Findings help for system design of spaceborne low-frequency PolInSAR missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to report on the progresses made during the Dragon-4 project Three and Four-Dimensional Topographic Measurement and Validation (ID: 32278), sub-project Multi-baseline SAR Processing for 3D/4D Reconstruction (ID: 32278_2). The work here reported focuses on two important aspects of SAR remote sensing of tropical forests, namely the retrieval of forest biomass and the assessment of effects due to changing weather conditions. Recent studies have shown that by using SAR tomography the backscattered power at 30m layer above the ground is linearly correlated to the forest Above Ground Biomass (AGB). However, the two parameters that determine this linear relationship might vary for different tropical forest sites. For purpose of solving this problem, we investigate the possibility of using LiDAR derived AGB to help training the two parameters. Experimental results obtained by processing data from the TropiSAR campaign support the feasibility of the proposed concept. This analysis is complemented by an assessment of the impact of changing weather conditions on tomographic imaging, for which we simulate BIOMASS repeat pass tomography using ground-based TropiSCAT data with a revisit time of 3 days and rainy days included. The resulting backscattered power variation at 30m is within 1.5dB. For this forest site, this error is translated into an AGB error of about 50~80t/hm 2, which is 20% or less of forest AGB.

Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (Pol-InSAR) based forest height estimation for ecosystem monitoring and management has been developing rapidly in recent years. Spaceborne Pol-InSAR systems with long temporal baselines of several days always lead to severe temporal decorrelation, which can cause a forest height overestimation error. However, most forest height estimation studies have not considered the change in dielectric property as a factor that may cause temporal decorrelation with a long temporal baseline. Therefore, it is necessary to propose a new method that considers dielectric fluctuations and random motions of scattering elements to compensate for the temporal decorrelation effect. The lack of ground truth for forest canopy also needs a solution. Unsupervised methods could be a solution because they do not require the use of true values of tree heights as the ground truth to calculate their estimation accuracies. This paper aims to present an unsupervised forest height estimation method called Dielectric Fluctuation and Random Motion over Ground (DF-RMoG) to improve accuracy by considering the dielectric fluctuations and random motions. Its performance is investigated using Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS)-1 Pol-InSAR data acquired over a German forest site with temporal intervals of 46 and 92 days. The authors analyze the relationship between forest height and different parameters with DF-RMoG and conventional models. Compared with conventional models, the proposed DF-RMoG model significantly reduces the overestimation error due to temporal decorrelation in forest height estimation according to its lowest average forest height.

Sentinel-1 interferometric time-series allow for the accurate retrieval of the target’s temporal decorrelation and, therefore, the inversion of land cover information and its temporal monitoring. This paper describes the development of an observation scenario for monitoring monthly deforestation over the Amazon rainforest, which relies on the use of radar for overcoming the physical limitations of optical sensors caused by the presence of cloud coverage. Specifically, we implement a classification scheme that exploits multi-temporal SAR features, such as backscatter, spatial textures, and interferometric parameters, to map forested areas. Distinct forest maps are generated for consecutive months and further processed to detect deforestation phenomena and map clear-cuts evolution. The obtained results are validated by selecting cloud-free Sentinel-2 multispectral data on the selected area and acquired during the same observation time.

To compensate for the limitations of insufficient observation information and simplistic geometric structure of single-baseline InSAR, this study proposes a new method for extracting forest height from ALOS-2 PARSAR-2 multi-baseline PolInSAR datas. Firstly, the Maximum Coherence Difference (MCD) algorithm is introduced to determine the polarization; this algorithm is very sensitive to volume scattering in the polarization space. Then, with the aid of a small amount of externally known forest height data, the coherence amplitude of the polarization is used to solve the temporal decorrelation semi-empirical scattering model. In addition, multi-baseline datas are further fused to increase the diversity of observation geometry and improve the reliability of the inversion results. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we selected Huangfengqiao Forestry Center in Hunan, China as the study area and used three pairs of ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 interferometric images with 14-day temporal baseline for the experimental analysis. The experimental results showed that the method proposed in this study effectively improved the assumptions and addressed the limitation of the existing method that is only applicable to single-baseline interferometric data. Thus, the inversion accuracy can be improved by at least 40%.

P-band PolInSAR technique has been validated to be a useful tool for forest height inversion. Aiming at the residual ground scattering contribution and temporal decorrelation in repeat-pass interferometry that affect the inversion accuracy, we proposed a dual-baseline method based on the RVoG + VTD model. This method is firstly applied to E-SAR P-band data acquired over the Krycklan Catchment, Sweden with mixed forests, and the influence of ground scattering contribution and temporal decorrelation related to vertical wavenumber kz and height hv are theoretically and experimentally explored by comparing the traditional three-stage inversion method, the fixed extinction method and the proposed method. The experimental results show that the traditional three-stage inversion method has a overall serious overestimation for the whole study area, resulting in a R2 of ca. 0.4 and RMSE of ca. 7 m. Compared with the three-stage inversion method, the fixed extinction method improves the overestimation in the near range but has little effect in the far range. After introducing the RVoG + VTD model, both the overestimation in the near and far range are improved. In general, the study area is affected by both the influence of ground scattering contribution and temporal decorrelation. The overestimation in the near range (with kz larger than ca. 0.1 rad/m) is mainly caused by ground scattering contribution while for the far range (with kz smaller than ca. 0.06 rad/m) temporal decorrelation is the dominated reason. The simulation experiment further reveals the relationship between the influence of ground scattering contribution, temporal decorrelation and kz. Simulative results also show that ground scattering contribution has a greater influence for a large kz while temporal decorrelation generally brings overestimation, and has a greater impact for a small kz inversely. The proposed method simultaneously reduces the effects of ground scattering contribution and temporal decorrelation, and produces the highest accuracy with R2 reaching to ca. 0.6 and RMSE reducing to ca. 3.48 m, further demonstrating its validity for forest height inversion.

The interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique based on time–frequency (TF) analysis has great potential for mapping the forest canopy height model (CHM) at regional and global scales, as it benefits from the additional InSAR observations provided by the sublook decomposition. Meanwhile, due to the wider swath and higher spatial resolution of single-polarization data, InSAR has a higher observation efficiency in comparison with PolInSAR. However, the accuracy of the CHM inversion obtained by the TF-InSAR method is attenuated by its inaccurate coherent scattering modeling and uncertain parameter calculation. Hence, a new approach for CHM estimation based on single-baseline InSAR data and sublook decomposition is proposed in this study. With its derivation of the coherent scattering modeling based on the scattering matrix of sublook observations, a time–frequency based random volume over ground (TF-RVoG) model is proposed to describe the relationship between the sublook coherence and the forest biophysical parameters. Then, a modified three-stage method based on the TF-RVoG model is used for CHM retrieval. Finally, the two-dimensional (2-D) ambiguous error of pure volume coherence caused by residual ground scattering and temporal decorrelation is alleviated in the complex unit circle. The performance of the proposed method was tested with airborne L-band E-SAR data at the Krycklan test site in Northern Sweden. Results show that the modified three-stage method provides a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 5.61 m using InSAR and 14.3% improvement over the PolInSAR technique with respect to the classical three-stage inversion result. An inversion accuracy of RMSE = 2.54 m is obtained when the spatial heterogeneity of CHM is considered using the proposed method, demonstrating a noticeable improvement of 32.8% compared with results from the existing method which introduces the fixed temporal decorrelation factor.

Many Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar (GBSAR) applications demand preliminary analysis to select areas with high-quality signal. That is, areas in which the phase can be processed to extract the desired information. The interferometric coherence and the amplitude dispersion index are important tools widely used in the literature to assess the quality of GBSAR images. So far, no direct relation has been found between the two. Indeed, they are parameters of different natures: amplitude dispersion index is calculated with only amplitude values, while coherence provides information also on the signal phase. The purpose of this article is to find a relation between the two parameters. Indeed, the amplitude dispersion index provides some practical advantages if compared to coherence estimators, especially to perform fast preliminary analysis. In this article, a theoretical relation between amplitude dispersion index and coherence is retrieved. GBSAR measurements acquired in different scenarios, at different working frequencies are presented and used to validate such a relation.

Following the past TropiScat and AfriScat tower-based scatterometer experiments conducted as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) BIOMASS mission preparation activities, a follow-on experiment referred to as TropiScat-2 has been undertaken in French Guiana since March 2018. Based on new capabilities including C-band acquisitions, this letter addresses the question of temporal decorrelation variability at several time scales using a period of 67 days dating back to early August 2018. Overall, C-band coherences have been found very dependent on the reference hour and higher than expected at night (15-min coherences above 0.75 and 1-h coherences above 0.5 75% of the time). Supported by meteorological data from the flux-tower, clear evidence about diurnal convective effects is shown. For the first time, the link with evapotranspiration is pointed out based on a drop of the 15-min coherences going from about 0.8 to 0.2 in less than 1 h (around 7h30) and before the rise of convective winds. Furthermore, the specific impacts of convective winds during the day have been demonstrated using very short timescales (with the spread of coherences at 1 s from 0 to 0.9), whereas it is more difficult to separate these effects from those of water transfer for longer timescales. In addition to providing new insights for the understanding of microwave interactions with dense vegetation, these results should also contribute to widen the capabilities of future companion or high revisit space-borne missions at C-band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper reports on the activities carried out in the context of “Dragon project 32278: Three- and Four-Dimensional Topographic Measurement and Validation”. The research work was split into three subprojects and encompassed several activities to deliver accurate characterization of targets on land surfaces and deepen the current knowledge on the exploitation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. The goal of Subproject 1 was to validate topographic mapping accuracy of various ESA, TPM, and Chinese satellite system on test sites in the EU and China; define and improve validation methodologies for topographic mapping; and develop and setup test sites for the validation of different surface motion estimation techniques. Subproject 2 focused on the specific case of spatially and temporally decorrelating targets by using multi-baseline interferometric (InSAR) and tomographic (TomoSAR) SAR processing. Research on InSAR led to the development of robust retrieval techniques to estimate target displacement over time. Research on TomoSAR was focused on testing or defining new processing methods for high-resolution 3D imaging of the interior of forests and glaciers and the characterization of their temporal behavior. Subproject 3 was focused on near-real-time motion estimation, considering efficient algorithms for the digestion of new acquisitions and for changes in problem parameterization.

Abstract The RMoG (Random-Motion-over-Ground) model is commonly used to obtain tree height values from PolInSAR images. The RMoG model borrows its structure function from conventional RVoG (Random-Volume-over-Ground) model which is limited for modelling structural variety in canopy layer. This paper extends the RMoG model to improve tree height estimation accuracy by using a Fourier-Legendre polynomial as the structure function. The new model is denoted by the RMoG L model. The proposed modification makes height estimation less prone to errors by enabling more flexibility in representing the vertical structure of the vegetation layer. We applied the RMoG L model on airborne P- and L-band PolInSAR images from the Remingstorp test site in southern Sweden. We compared it with the RMoG and the conventional RVoG models using Lidar height map and field data for validation. For P-band, the relative error was equal to 37.5% for the RVoG model, to 23.7% for the RMoG model, and to 18.5% for the RMoG L model. For L-band it was equal to 30.54% for the RVoG model, to 20.02% for the RMoG model, and to 21.63% for the RMoG L. We concluded that the RMoG L model estimates tree height more accurately in P-band, while in L-band the RMoG model was equally good. The RMoG L model is of a great value for future SAR sensors that are more focused than before on tree height and biomass estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multibaseline method to increase the accuracy of height estimation when using SAR tomographic data. It is based upon mitigating the temporal decorrelation induced by wind. The Fourier–Legendre function of different orders was fitted to each pixel as the structure function in the PCT model. It was combined with the motion standard deviation function from the random-motion-over ground (RMoG) model. L-band multibaseline data are used that were acquired during the AfriSAR campaign over La Lope National Park in Gabon with a height range between 0 and 60 m that has an average of 30 m and standard deviation of 15 m. The results were compared with those from the regular PCT model using the root mean square error (RMSE). Histograms were compared to the one obtained from Lidar height map. The average RMSE was equal to 7.5 m for the regular PCT model and to 5.6 m for the modified PCT model. We concluded that the accuracy of tree height estimation increased after modeling of temporal decorrelation. This is of value for future satellite missions that would collect tomographic data over forest areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground-based synthetic aperture radar (GB-SAR) sensors represent a cost-effective solution for change detection and ground displacement assessment of small-scale areas in real-time early warning applications. GB-SAR systems based on stepped linear frequency modulated continuous wave signals have led to several improvements such as a significant reduction of the acquisition time. Nevertheless, the acquisition time is still long enough to force a degradation of the quality of the reconstructed images because of possible short-term variable reflectivity of the scenario. This reduction of the quality may degrade the differential interferometric detection process. In scenarios where interesting targets are surrounded by vegetation, this is normally related to atmospheric conditions, in particular, the wind. The present paper characterizes the effect of the short-term variable reflectivity in the GB-SAR image reconstruction and evaluates its equivalent blurring effect, the decorrelation introduced in the SAR images, and the degradation of the extracted parameters. In order to validate the results, the study assesses different GB-SAR images obtained with the RISKSAR-X sensor, which has been developed by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researches carried out in the last years have shown that the use of P-band SAR tomography (TomoSAR) largely improves the retrieval of the above-ground biomass (AGB) in tropical forests, providing a most encouraging element toward the systematic employment of TomoSAR techniques in the frame of the upcoming spaceborne mission BIOMASS. All of these researches were carried out using campaign data acquired in a single day, and under stable (mostly sunny) weather conditions. The impact of temporal decorrelation was considered in the literature by analyzing ground-based Radar data from the TropiSCAT campaign (Paracou, French Guiana), and found not to be a show-stopper for BIOMASS tomography. Yet, the validity of this analysis was limited to sunny days only. Accordingly, a precise assessment of the impact of changing weather conditions on TomoSAR is currently missing. The aim of this paper is to provide a first experimental element to fill this gap. To do this, data from the TropiSCAT archive are reprocessed to mimic BIOMASS repeat-pass tomography. Since BIOMASS tomography will be implemented by taking seven acquisitions with a revisit time of three days, we form tomograms by taking two TropiSCAT antennas every three days (and three antennas on the last day), which means that any single tomogram is actually obtained by mixing seven different days and under different weather conditions. The quality of tomographic imaging is then assessed by evaluating the observed backscattered power fluctuations in the tomogram time series. While imaging quality is observed to degrade by mixing different days, the resulting temporal variations of the backscattered power in the canopy layer are within 1.5-dB rms in cross polarization. For this forest site, this error is translated into an AGB error of about 50–100 t/ha, which is 20% or less of forest AGB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports recent advancements in the field of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for forest mapping by using interferometric short-time-series. In particular, we first present how the interferometric capabilities of the Sentinel-1 satellites constellation can be exploited for the monthly mapping of the Amazon rainforest. Indeed, the evolution in time of the interferometric coherence can be properly modeled as an exponential decay and the retrieved interferometric parameters can be used, together with the backscatter, as input features to the machine learning Random Forests classifier. Furthermore, we present an analysis on the benefits of the use of textural information, derived from Sentinel-1 backscatter, in order to enhance the classification accuracy. These textures are computed through the Sum And Difference Histograms methodology and the final classification accuracy, resulting by adding them to the aforementioned features, is a thematic map that exceeds an overall agreement of 85 % , when validated using the optical external reference Finer Resolution Observation and Monitoring of Global Land Cover (FROM-GLC) map. The experiments presented in the final part of the paper are enriched with a further analysis and discussion on the selected scenes using updated multispectral Sentinel-2 acquisitions.

Estimating vegetation height from polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PolInSAR) data using the Random Volume over Ground model has motivated several studies. Most of these propose estimators and apply them to real data to demonstrate their potential. In previous publications on the single-baseline system, we proposed a complementary approach, which consisted in analyzing the precision of estimations of vegetation height that can be expected depending on the considered model and on the available a priori knowledge. In this paper, we develop such an analysis for the case of a dual-baseline (DB) system. We consider the DB configuration with a PolInSAR set obtained with three PolSAR acquisitions, the extinction coefficient of the volume is assumed unknown, and the level of temporal decorrelation is assumed to be unknown. The observed high sensitivity of the vegetation height Cramer–Rao bound (CRB) with respect to the system parameters and the vegetation characteristics shows that the system optimization cannot guarantee 1-m precision for all vegetation heights, even for large estimation windows with $N=2000$ pixels. Nevertheless, an operating regime exists for which the vegetation height estimation precision is around 1 m for $N=200$ pixels. This regime is obtained for a pair of wavenumbers (0.06 and 0.25 m−1), for vegetation height ranging [20, 50] m, and for polarimetric contrast between the ground and the volume larger than 0.3. Furthermore, we investigate the performance of a maximum-likelihood estimator and compare this to the precision given by the CRB. For the examples considered, with $N=200$ pixels, we observed convergence issues of the estimator when the polarimetric contrast is smaller or equal to 0.3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess and compare several algorithms to compensate for temporal decorrelation observed in repeat-pass L-band polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PolInSAR) measurements of forest canopy height. The analysis is performed on data acquired with an approximately 45-min temporal baseline using the uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar collected in August 2009 over temperate and boreal forests of the U.S. state of Maine and the Canadian province of Québec. This investigation presents several compensation methods based on the classical random volume over ground model, which include fixing the value of the extinction parameter, fixing the temporal decorrelation magnitude, or varying temporal decorrelation estimates with height. We also compare results with the random motion over ground model. While these methods have been presented in the literature previously, a comparison of the different methods and an assessment of their height estimation accuracy applied to the same datasets have not yet been performed. In addition, we introduce the use of ancillary reference forest height data from airborne large footprint lidar to estimate model parameters and to mitigate solution ambiguities. We finally demonstrate that this mitigation strategy is robust and suitable for use with future spaceborne lidar missions such as the Global Ecosystems Dynamics Investigation. The resulting PolInSAR canopy height estimates correspond well with those obtained from coincident field and airborne lidar data. Height estimation differences of 3.4 m (RMSE) were observed between the PolInSAR- and lidar-derived canopy height maps when using the fixed extinction method. These can be partially attributed to inherent differences in the sensor spatial resolutions and geolocation accuracy. The RMS error between the PolInSAR height estimates and the field collected Lorey's heights was 2.4 m. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Temporal decorrelation is a critical parameter for repeat-pass coherent radar processing, including many advanced techniques such as polarimetric SAR interferometry (PolInSAR) and SAR tomography (TomoSAR). Given the multifactorial and unpredictable causes of temporal decorrelation, statistical analysis of long time series of measurements from tower-based scatterometers is the most appropriate method for characterizing how rapidly a specific scene decorrelates. Based on the TropiScat experiment that occurred in a tropical dense forest in French Guiana, this letter proposes a comparative analysis between temporal decorrelation at P-band and at higher frequencies in the range of 800–1000 MHz (the low end of the L-band). This letter aims to support the design of future repeat-pass spaceborne missions and to offer a better understanding of the physics behind temporal decorrelation. Beyond the expected lower values that are found and quantified at the low L-band compared with the P-band, similar decorrelation patterns related to rainy and dry periods are emphasized in addition to the critical impacts of acquisition time during the day. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper was aimed to analyse the effect of temporal decorrelation in carbon stocks estimation. Estimation of carbon stocks plays important roles particularly to understand the global carbon cycle in the atmosphere regarding with climate change mitigation effort. PolInSAR technique combines the advantages of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) and Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technique, which is evidenced to have significant contribution in radar mapping technology in the last few years. In carbon stocks estimation, PolInSAR provides information about vertical vegetation structure to estimate carbon stocks in the forest layers. Two coherence Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images of ALOS PALSAR full-polarimetric with 46 days temporal baseline were used in this research. The study was carried out in Southeast Sulawesi tropical forest. The research method was by comparing three interferometric phase coherence images affected by temporal decorrelation and their impacts on Random Volume over Ground (RvoG) model. This research showed that 46 days temporal baseline has a significant impact to estimate tree heights of the forest cover where the accuracy decrease from R2=0.7525 (standard deviation of tree heights is 2.75 meters) to R2=0.4435 (standard deviation 4.68 meters) and R2=0.3772 (standard deviation 3.15 meters) respectively. However, coherence optimisation can provide the best coherence image to produce a good accuracy of carbon stocks.

After almost two decades of long investigations into 3D imaging of natural environments, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography (TomoSAR) is now at an operational level. Yet, a major problem that limits the potential of TomoSAR is related to the temporal decorrelation of natural scatterers during multitemporal multibaseline data acquisition. In this paper, a comparative investigation into the effect of temporal decorrelation between employed polarizations is presented. A particular focus is put on practical and statistical analysis of the dispersion of polarimetric vertical reflectivity in the presence of temporal decorrelation. The analysis is based on the synthesis of all feasible polarimetric responses of a given scatterer from its measurements of a linear orthonormal basis. Such an analysis offers a comprehension of the expected level of temporal decorrelation in TomoSAR focusing with respect to employed polarization. The analysis was performed by simulating temporal decorrelation with different terms, depending on the vertical structure and polarization, which are important aspects in a forest scenario. Moreover, the experiment was extended to a P-band dataset relative to the forest site of Remningstorp, Sweden, which was acquired through the German Aerospace Center’s experimental SAR (E-SAR) airborne system in the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA) campaign BioSAR.

Temporal and geometrical decorrelation often prevents SAR interferometry from being an operational tool for surface deformation monitoring. Moreover, atmospheric disturbances can strongly compromise the accuracy of the results. In order to solve the above problem. In this paper, Interferometric Point Target Analysis (IPTA) technology was used to obtain surface deformation information with an area of 700km2 in Beijing. In the experiment, 20 TerraSAR-X images from October 2014 to June 2016 were selected to monitor the surface subsidence in Beijing and higher resolution and higher accuracy WorldDEM obtained by DLR was used to simulated terrain phase, so as to register the high-resolution TerraSAR-X image. The final results show the surface subsidence tendency of Beijing urban from October 2014 to June 2016: in the center of monitor area surface tends to be stable within approximately subsidence rate of 3mm/a. In the east of monitor, the area of Chaoyang and Tongzhou, there are obvious subsidence phenomenon. This subsidence is affected by groundwater exploitation, flake subsidence it had an tendency of expanding to the east and south, and the maximum annual subsidence is more than 76mm/year. The results of this monitoring are basically consistent with the published data of surface subsidence in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal decorrelation is the most critical issue for the successful inversion of polarimetric SAR interferometry (Pol-InSAR) data acquired in an interferometric repeat-pass mode, typical for satellite or lower frequency airborne SAR systems. This paper provides a quantitative estimation of temporal decorrelation effects at L-band for a wide range of temporal baselines based on a unique set of multibaseline Pol-InSAR data. A new methodology that allows to quantify individual temporal decorrelation components has been developed and applied. Temporal decorrelation coefficients are estimated for temporal baselines ranging from 10 min to 54 days and converted to height inversion errors caused by them. The temporal decorrelations of γTV (volume temporal decorrelation) and γTG (ground temporal decorrelation) depend not only on the wind-induced movement but also strongly on the rain-induced dielectric changes in volume and on the ground at temporal baseline on the order of day or longer. At temporal baselines on the order of minutes, the wind speed is a critical parameter and the speed of 2 m/s already hampers the application of Pol-InSAR forest parameter inversion. The approach is supported and validated by using L-band E-SAR repeat-pass data acquired in the frame of three dedicated campaigns, BioSAR 2007, TempoSAR 2008, and TempoSAR 2009.

The interferometric coherence parameter γ estimates the degree of correlation between two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and can be influenced by vegetation structure. Here, we investigate the use of repeat-pass interferometric coherence γ to map stand age, an important parameter for the study of carbon stocks and forest regeneration. In August 2009 NASA’s L-band airborne sensor UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) acquired zero-baseline data over Quebec with temporal separation ranging between 45 min and 9 days. Our analysis focuses on a 66 km2 managed boreal forest and addresses three questions: (i) Can coherence from L-band systems be used to model forest age? (ii) Are models sensitive to weather events and temporal baseline? and (iii) How is model accuracy impacted by the spatial scale of analysis? Linear regression models with 2-day baseline showed the best results and indicated an inverse relationship between γ and stand age. Model accuracy improved at 5 ha scale (R2 = 0.75, RMSE = 5.3) as compared to 1 ha (R2 = 0.67, RMSE = 5.8). Our results indicate that coherence measurements from L-band repeat-pass systems can estimate forest age accurately and with no saturation. However, empirical model relationships and their accuracy are sensitive to weather events, temporal baseline, and spatial scale of analysis.

We present an empirical assessment of the impact of temporal decorrelation on interferometric coherence measured over a forested landscape. A series of repeat-pass interferometric radar images with a zero spatial baseline were collected with UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar), a fully polarimetric airborne L-band radar system. The dataset provided temporal separations of 45 minutes, 2, 7 and 9 days. Coincident airborne lidar and weather data were collected. We theoretically demonstrate that UAVSAR measurement accuracy enables accurate quantification of temporal decorrelation. Data analysis revealed precipitation events to be the main driver of temporal decorrelation over the acquisition period. The experiment also shows temporal decorrelation increases with canopy height, and this pattern was found consistent across forest types and polarization.

This paper proposes a new method for forest height estimation using single-baseline single frequency polarimetric synthetic aperture radar interferometry (PolInSAR) data. The new algorithm estimates the forest height based on the random volume over the ground with a volume temporal decorrelation (RVoG+VTD) model. We approach the problem using a four-stage geometrical method without the need for any prior information. In order to decrease the number of unknown parameters in the RVoG+VTD model, the mean extinction coefficient is estimated in an independent procedure. In this respect, the suggested algorithm estimates the mean extinction coefficient as a function of a geometrical index based on the signal penetration in the volume layer. As a result, the proposed four-stage algorithm can be used for forest height estimation using the repeat pass PolInSAR data, affected by temporal decorrelation, without the need for any auxiliary data. The suggested algorithm was applied to the PolInSAR data of the European Space Agency (ESA), BioSAR 2007 campaign. For the performance analysis of the proposed approach, repeat pass experimental SAR (ESAR) L-band data, acquired over the Remningstorp test site in Southern Sweden, is employed. The experimental result shows that the four-stage method estimates the volume height with an average root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.47 m against LiDAR heights. It presents a significant improvement of forest height accuracy, i.e., 5.42 m, compared to the three-stage method result, which ignores the temporal decorrelation effect.

In forestry studies, remote sensing has been widely used to monitor deforestation and estimate biomass, and it has contributed to forest carbon stock management. A major problem when estimating biomass from optical and SAR remote sensing images is the saturation effect. As a solution, PolInSAR offers a high coverage height map that can be transformed into a biomass map. Temporal decorrelation may affect the accuracy of PolInSAR and may also have an effect on the accuracy of the biomass estimates. In this study, we compared three different height estimation models: the Random-Volume-over-Ground (RVoG), Random-Motion-over-Ground (RMoG), and Random-Motion-over-Ground-Legendre (RMoG L ) models. The RVoG model does not take into account the temporal decorrelation, while the other two compensate for temporal decorrelation but differ in structure function. The comparison was done on 214 field plots of the 10 m radius of the BioSAR2010 campaign. Different models relating PolInSAR height and biomass were developed by using polynomial, exponential, power series, and piece-wise linear regression. Different strategies for training and test subset selection were followed to obtain the best possible regression models. The study showed that the RMoG L model provided the most accurate biomass predictions. The relation between RMoG L height and biomass is well expressed by the exponential model with an average RMSE equal to 48 ton ha − 1 and R 2 value equal to 0.62. The relative errors for estimated biomass were equal to 46% for the RVoG model, to 37% for the RMoG, and to 30% for the RMoG L model. We concluded that taking the temporal decorrelation into account for estimating tree height has a significant effect on providing accurate biomass estimates.

The “Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Palpa” in Peru are among the most well-known UNESCO World Heritage Sites globally, and an exemplar of site where heritage assets cannot be separated from their natural and anthropogenic environment. The site is exposed to interactions with natural processes, as well as human presence. In this work, 3-m resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) StripMap HIMAGE HH-polarised scenes acquired by the X-band COSMO-SkyMed constellation are exploited to track two events of human-induced landscape disturbance that occurred in December 2014 and January 2018. Pre-, cross-, and post-event interferometric SAR (InSAR) pairs characterised by small temporal and normal baselines allow the detection of temporal decorrelation associated with the two events, the extent and time reference of which match with online photographic and video evidence, published literature, web news, and press releases by the Ministry of Culture in Peru. Further elements enhancing the understanding of the 2018 event come from 10-m resolution Sentinel-2B satellite data that reveal the occurrence of apparent changes of surface reflectance due to uncovering of the light grey-yellow clay underneath the darker pebble constituting the fragile surface of the Pampa de Jumana. This scientific study confirms that SAR imagery archives, such as those being built by COSMO-SkyMed for Nasca, prove valuable for the retrospective analysis and digital recording of human-induced landscape disturbance events from space. These archives therefore act as essential sources of geospatial information on the conservation history of heritage sites and assets.

Although neurons within intact nervous systems can be classified as 'sensory' or 'motor,' it is not known whether there is any general distinction between sensory and motor neurons at the cellular or molecular levels. Here, we extend and test a theory according to which activation of certain subtypes of voltage-gated ion channel (VGC) generate patterns of spikes in neurons of motor systems, whereas VGC are proposed to counteract patterns in sensory neurons. We previously reported experimental evidence for the theory from visual thalamus, where we found that T-type calcium channels (TtCCs) did not cause bursts of spikes but instead served the function of 'predictive homeostasis' to maximize the causal and informational link between retinogeniculate excitation and spike output. Here, we have recorded neurons in brain slices from eight sensory and motor regions of rat thalamus while mimicking key features of natural excitatory and inhibitory post-synaptic potentials. As predicted by theory, TtCC did cause bursts of spikes in motor thalamus. TtCC-mediated responses in motor thalamus were activated at more hyperpolarized potentials and caused larger depolarizations with more spikes than in visual and auditory thalamus. Somatosensory thalamus is known to be more closely connected to motor regions relative to auditory and visual thalamus, and likewise the strength of its TtCC responses was intermediate between these regions and motor thalamus. We also observed lower input resistance, as well as limited evidence of stronger hyperpolarization-induced ('H-type') depolarization, in nuclei closer to motor output. These findings support our theory of a specific difference between sensory and motor neurons at the cellular level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this letter is to provide a better understanding of the impact of temporal decorrelation on the tomographic phase of the P-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mission BIOMASS, selected as the Seventh Earth Explorer by the European Space Agency. In the context of Phase A BIOMASS activities, the tropical forest site of Paracou, French Guiana, was illuminated at P-band during the airborne campaign TropiSAR 2009 and the ground-based campaign TropiScat 2011. P-band data from TropiSAR were used to generate a high-resolution 3-D reconstruction of the Paracou forest, whereas TropiScat data provided information about temporal correlation considering different time lags and different heights within the vegetation layer. The ensemble of the two datasets were used to generate a synthetic SAR data stack that emulates BIOMASS acquisitions over the Paracou forest site, accounting for BIOMASS geometry and resolution, as well as for the forest temporal decorrelation. Different data stacks were produced by varying the revisit time between two consecutive passes from 1 to 17 days. The resulting vertical structure reconstruction and forest height retrieval were observed to yield valuable results as long as the revisit time is 4 days or less. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the capabilities of the BIOMASS tomography concerning the retrieval of forest biomass and height in tropical areas. The analysis presented in this paper is carried out on airborne data acquired by Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) over the site of Paracou, French Guiana, during the European Space Agency campaign TropiSAR. This high-resolution data set (125-MHz bandwidth) was reprocessed in order to generate a new data stack consistent with BIOMASS as for the bandwidth (6 MHz) and the azimuth resolution (about 12 m). To do this, two different processing approaches have been considered. One approach consisted of degrading the resolution of the airborne data through the linear filtering of raw data, followed by standard SAR processing. The other approach consisted of recovering the 3-D distribution of the scatterers at a high resolution, which was then reprojected onto the BIOMASS geometry. The latter procedure allows us to obtain a data stack that is the most realistic emulation of BIOMASS imaging capabilities. In both approaches, neither ionospheric disturbances nor temporal decorrelation has been considered. The connection to the forest biomass has been examined in both cases by investigating the correlation between the backscatter at different forest heights and the above-ground biomass (AGB) values from in situ data. As expected, the reduction of the system bandwidth to 6 MHz resulted in significant vertical resolution losses compared with the original airborne data. Nevertheless, it was possible to retrieve the forest height to within an accuracy of better than 4 m, whereas the backscattered power at the volume height (30 m above the ground) exhibited a correlation higher than 0.8 with the in situ data and no bias phenomena over the AGB values ranging from 250 to 450 t/ha. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A novel coherence estimation method for small data sets is presented for interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) (InSAR) data processing and geoscience applications. The method selects homogeneous pixels in both the spatial and temporal spaces by means of local and nonlocal adaptive techniques. Reliable coherence estimation is carried out by using such pixels and by correcting the bias in the estimated coherence caused by the non-Gaussianity in high-resolution SAR scenes. As an example, the proposed method together with coherence decomposition is applied to extract the temporal decorrelation component over an area in Macao. The results show that the proposed algorithms work well over various types of land cover. Moreover, the coherence change with time can be more accurately detected compared to other conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]