Airborne P-band SAR applied to the aboveground biomass studies in the Brazilian tropical rainforest

The objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the response (sigmadegrees) of airborne P-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) polarimetric data versus biomass values of primary forest and secondary succession. To ensure that different landscapes of "Terra firme" tropical forest of the Brazilian Amazon were represented, a test-site was selected in the lower Tapajos river region (Para State). The microwave signals from the P-band polarimetric images were related to the aboveground biomass data by statistical regression models (logarithmic and polynomial functions). In the field survey, physiognomic and structural aspects of primary forest and regrowth were collected and afterwards the biomass was estimated using allometric equations based on dendrometric, parameters. As an example of the potential use of P-band polarimetric images, they were classified by a contextual classifier (ICM), whose thematic stratification of land use/land cover was associated with biomass class intervals for mapping purposes. The main objective of this P-band experiment is to improve this tool for regional mapping of Amazon landscape changes, due to the growing rate of land use occupation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.