Identification of the tropical forest in Brazilian Amazon based on the DEM difference from P and X bands interferometric data

Abstract

In this paper the difference between digital elevation models, derived from P and X bands interferometric data, is used as a main information to identify land cover classes. The radar data used in this work were collected on September of 2000 over Tapajos National Forest, which is a region of Brazilian Amazon, Para State. The SAR images were acquired from an airborne polarimetric system, AeS-1, that could provide P and X bands interferometric data. During the radar mission ground survey was carried out, and the georeferenced information about the forest typology were acquired, and used as a support for the thematic identification and calibration of the remoted sensing data. The X-band DEM was generated using one-pass interferometric data and the P-band DEM was generated using two-pass interferometric data. The grid of the DEMs has a spatial resolution of 2.5 meters. Images from P and X bands and coherence maps were also used in order to improve the classification. Supervised and unsupervised classifications techniques are used and their results are shown.