Monitoring vegetation regeneration in fire-affected tropical forests using ERS/JERS synthetic aperture radar

The authors monitor the change in SAR backscattered intensity from forests in East Kalimantan affected by the 1998 fires, possibly due to vegetation regeneration. Eight ERS scenes were acquired near the Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan, from July 1997 to November 1998. The backscattering coefficients over several fire-affected forest areas were evaluated. The time series of backscattering coefficients shows evidence of increasing vegetation coverage, probably due to shrubs or grass growth. Similar analysis was also done using four scenes of JERS SAR acquired in July 1996 (before fires), and in May, July, August 1998 (after fires)