Generation of Large-Scale Moderate-Resolution Forest Height Mosaic With Spaceborne Repeat-Pass SAR Interferometry and Lidar

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the scattering model, inversion approach, and validation of the application results for creating large-scale moderate-resolution (hectare-level) mosaics of forest height through using spaceborne repeat-pass SAR interferometry and lidar. By incorporating several improvements to the forest height inversion and mosaicking approach, the height estimation accuracy along with the robustness of this approach have been considerably enhanced from its originally reported accuracy of RMSE of 3–4 m at a 20-hectare aggregated pixel size to RMSE of 3–4 m on the order of 3–6 hectares. Furthermore, practical data processing schemes are provided in detail. Extensive validation results are demonstrated which include: 1) a forest height mosaic (total area of 11.6 million hectares) is generated for the U.S. states of Maine and New Hampshire using Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) ALOS-1 InSAR correlation data and a small airborne lidar strip (44 000 hectares); 2) the mosaic height estimates are further compared with the available airborne lidar data and field measurements over both flat and mountainous areas; and 3) feasibility of using modern repeat-pass InSAR satellites with short repeat interval is also examined by using JAXA’s ALOS-2 data. This simple and efficient approach is a potential observational prototype with much smaller error budget for the future spaceborne repeat-pass L-band InSAR systems with small spatial baseline and moderate/large temporal baseline (such as NISAR) in combination with lidar (such as GEDI) on the application of large-scale forest height/biomass mapping. It also serves as a complementary tool to the spaceborne single-pass InSAR systems using InSAR/PolInSAR methods when full-pol data are not available and/or when the underlying topography slope causes problems for these approaches.