Collaborative Estimation of Aboveground Forest Biomass Using P-Band and X-Band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar Based on Feature Optimization

Abstract

Accurate estimation of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) is crucial for research on terrestrial carbon cycling and global climate change. In this study, we introduce an improved approach for estimating forest AGB combining P-band and X-band interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data. Forest AGB was estimated by combining unbiased forest height and volume backscatter intensity. For forest height, a multilayer model and subaperture decomposition technology were used to remove the penetration bias of the X-band and reduce the effects of forest scatterers on the extraction of a pure understory terrain phase based on P-band, respectively. For volume backscatter intensity, a ground cancellation algorithm based on P-band InSAR was used to eliminate ground scattering contributions unrelated to forest AGB. The proposed method was validated using airborne P-band InSAR data and spaceborne X-band InSAR data gathered over the study area on the Saihanba Forest Farm in Hebei, China. The unbiased forest height and volume backscatter intensity had stronger correlations with forest AGB than estimates derived from unimproved features. The proposed method returned high-precision estimates of forest AGB with an accuracy of 83.73%, an improvement of 8.80% over an estimate derived from unoptimized features. Additionally, AGB estimates combined with forest height and backscatter intensity were greater than those based on a single feature, with the contribution of the former is greater than that of the latter.

Keywords

• Forest biomass estimation
• forest height
• interferometric SAR (InSAR)
• P-band
• volume backscatter intensity
• X-band