Peatland ecosystem characterization employing L-band SAR

Peat swamp forests are very important sources of carbon among the terrestrial forest ecosystems. Large areas of peat swamp forests have been deforested in the recent past. A time series of L-band SAR data has been employed to detect the deforestation that has occurred in the central Kalimantan region, Indonesia, between 1994 and 1998. Large areas that have been deforested have been converted into cultivated lands but agricultural crops have miserably failed to grow on these soils because of the adverse water and soil chemistry. Furthermore, the L-band SAR has been able to detect the flooded conditions in these forests, particularly in short pole and riverside vegetation types where the transmissivity of the L-band SAR signals are quite significant. In case of very dense forests, the inundation could not be detected because of very high attenuation and thus low penetration of L-band radar. The information about these two phenomena viz., deforestation and inundation would be used for estimation of the carbon and trace gases exchange in these forests.