Spaceborne SAR Data Processing and Its Application in Forest Biophysical Parameter Mapping and Change Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)-derived large-scale high-resolution products of forest biophysical parameters (such as forest aboveground biomass and height) are critical variables for quantifying the global terrestrial carbon storage and modeling the dynamics of the carbon cycle. Modern spaceborne SARs have the advantage of wall-to-wall mapping such parameters at high spatial and temporal resolution with wide-swath coverage and all-weather day/night observing capability. Furthermore, most of the advanced spaceborne SAR sensors are equipped with multi-mode observations, such as Polarimetric SAR (PolSAR), Interferometric SAR (InSAR), Polarimetric InSAR (PolInSAR), and Tomographic SAR (TomoSAR), all of which in combination provide multi-dimensional information of forest structure and/or biophysical parameters.

This Special Issue aims to solicit original articles on advanced spaceborne SAR data processing methods with an emphasis on their applications in forest biophysical parameter mapping and change monitoring, which include, but are not limited to:

• Advanced data processing methods of modern spaceborne SAR data, such as JAXA's ALOS/ALOS-2/ALOS-4, ESA’s Sentinel-1, DLR's TanDEM-X, China’s Gaofen series and bistatic L-SAR, ESA's BIOMASS, and NASA'S NISAR;
• Novel inversion algorithms for determining the status and change of vegetation vertical structure and forest biophysical parameters (e.g., aboveground biomass and height) through the use of advanced spaceborne SAR-based approaches, as well as auxiliary data from other types of sensor such as lidar and/or optical data;
• Algorithms for creating large-scale products of forest biophysical parameters as well as their changes over various terrestrial biomes with different climate/weather conditions;
• New electromagnetic scattering models for interpreting and simulating SAR observations of forests;
• Recent progress in airborne radar campaigns as well as field inventory experiments for different types of forest in support of the cal/val activities for spaceborne SAR missions.

Prof. Dr. Yang Lei
Dr. Robert Treuhaft
Prof. Dr. Paul Siqueira
Guest Editors

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• spaceborne SAR
• InSAR
• PolSAR
• PolInSAR
• TomoSAR
• forest biophysical parameter
• forest aboveground biomass
• forest height
• radar lidar fusion
• radar optical fusion
• large-scale product