See the forests with different eyes

In this paper, biomass estimations are compared using quadpol ALOS PALSAR, TerraSAR-X and LIDAR data over Glen Affric, Scotland. Biomass was retrieved from the ALOS PALSAR and TerraSAR-X data using Yamaguchi decomposition to obtain useful information about the scattering mechanisms. A regression equation is obtained from the establishment of a relationship between the ratio of volume and surface scattering mechanism and the biomass obtained from fieldwork. Since the study site is a mountainous region, the terrain slope effects need to be compensated before retrieving the biomass. For LIDAR, the vertical structure of both the underlying topography and the forest structure were generated to estimate the biomass allometrically. Validation on the results of the biomass estimation was done by comparing the biomass estimated using ALOS PALSAR, TerraSAR-X and LIDAR. The results suggest that in some areas the biomass retrievals are broadly comparable.