On the estimation of forest vertical structure from multibaseline polarimetric SAR data

Forest characterization and biomass estimation by means of remote sensing systems are nowadays “hot topics” within the remote sensing community, given their importance in the terrestrial carbon budget. In fact, forest vertical structure is a key variable for assessing biodiversity and structural degradation and/or regeneration. Moreover, the (vertical) structure information is important as it can allow the development of accurate and robust (alometric) estimators of the forest biomass. In this paper, potentials and challenges of forest vertical structure estimation with low frequency multibaseline polarimetric synthetic aperture radar are reviewed and discussed.