BIOMASS ESTIMATION USING VERTICAL FOREST STRUCTURE FROM SAR TOMOGRAGHY: A CASE STUDY IN CANADIAN BOREAL FOREST.

Abstract. A major goal of current research is to address temporal climatic variations that are related to CO2 emissions. A significant portion of these emissions are due to forest destruction and the resulting conversion of biomass to CO2. As 30% of the earth's landmass is forest-covered, it is important to understand the biomass content with better estimates than are currently available. This research has addressed the determination of forest biomass in a Northern Alberta forest site, using novel techniques known as POLInSAR (Polarimetry Interferometry SAR) to study the 3D vegetated structure of forests through using an L-Band single-pass airborne system. Results of this study indicate strong relation between vertical structure and above ground biomass. In this paper we show the preliminary results of the work including the resulting tomographic expression of the test forest area.