High resolution in-situ tomography on pine forests

This paper describes a field campaign performed with a ground-based polarimetric tomographic imager designed to measure the vertical response of several forest plots in order to better understand the mechanisms contributing to the total radar response. The campaign took place in the Mende forest, an artificial forest of European Black Pines, in South of France. The objective is to perform a sensitivity study on the radar observables based on biophysical parameters. This paper presents a description of the experiment hardware and procedure, the results obtained for all sites, and a discussion of the results in the light of the ground truth. The results show vertical backscattered energy profiles as a function of tree density, forest growth, presence of undergrowth and ground slope. The evolution of the energy backscattered by the soil, the volume, and the whole scene is also displayed. These results have shown the interest of such a campaign to improve understanding of the distribution of radar mechanism along the vertical axis.