Assessing the influence of flight parameters, interferometric processing, slope and canopy density on the accuracy of X-band IFSAR-derived forest canopy height models.

Treesearch Home

About Treesearch

Research & Development

	Forest Products Lab
	International Institute of Tropical Forestry
	Northern
	Pacific Northwest
	Pacific Southwest
	Rocky Mountain
	Southern

Help


	All Treesearch publications were written or produced by Forest Service personnel and are in the public domain.

US Forest Service
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, D.C.
20090-6090

(202) 205-8333

Publication Information

Title:	Assessing the influence of flight parameters, interferometric processing, slope and canopy density on the accuracy of X-band IFSAR-derived forest canopy height models.
Author(s):	Andersen, H.-E.; McGaughey, R.J.; Reutebuch, S.E.
Date:	2008
Source:	International Journal of Remote Sensing. 29(5): 1495-1510
Description:	High resolution, active remote sensing technologies, such as interferometric synthetic aperture radar (IFSAR) and airborne laser scanning (lidar) have the capability to provide forest managers with direct measurements of 3-dimensional forest canopy surface structure. While lidar systems can provide highly accurate measurements of canopy and terrain surfaces, high resolution (X-band) IFSAR systems provide slightly less accurate measurements of canopy surface elevation over very large areas with a much higher data collection rate, leading to a lower cost per unit area. In addition, canopy height can be measured by taking the difference between the IFSAR-derived canopy surface elevation and a lidar-derived terrain surface elevation. Therefore, in areas where high-accuracy terrain models are available, IFSAR may be used to economically monitor changes in forest structure, and height over large areas on a relatively frequent basis. However, IFSAR flight parameters and processing techniques are not currently optimized for the forest canopy mapping application. In order to determine the accuracy of high resolution, X-band canopy surface models obtained over a mountainous forested area in central Washington state (USA) from two different flying heights (6000 m and 4500 m), from different look directions, and with different interferometric processing. In addition, we assessed the influence of terrain slope and canopy density on the accuracy of IFSAR canopy height models. High-accuracy lidar-derived canopy height models were used as a basis for comparison. Results indicate that sensing geometry is the single most important factor influencing the accuracy of IFSAR canopy height measurements, therefore acquiring IFSAR from multiple look directions can be critically important when using IFSAR for forest canopy measurement applications, especially in mountainous areas.
Keywords:
	View and Print this Publication (3.51 MB)
Pristine Version:	An uncaptured or "pristine" version of this publication is available. It has not been subjected to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and therefore does not have any errors in the text. However it is a larger file size and some people may experience long download times. The "pristine" version of this publication is available here: View and Print the PRISTINE copy of this Publication (3.51 MB)
Publication Notes:	We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information. This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.
	Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility

Citation

Andersen, H.-E.; McGaughey, R.J.; Reutebuch, S.E. 2008. Assessing the influence of flight parameters, interferometric processing, slope and canopy density on the accuracy of X-band IFSAR-derived forest canopy height models.. International Journal of Remote Sensing. 29(5): 1495-1510

US Forest Service - Research & Development
Last Modified: January 12, 2009