Interferometric tree height observations in boreal forests with SAR interferometry

Abstract

The current study evaluates INSAR measurements and model inversion from a dataset covering a boreal forest in the north of Sweden. The emphasis of the study is the interferometric tree height in repeat-pass SAR pairs. Measurements were obtained over three forests in seven image pairs and they ranged from slightly negative values to approximately 60% of the real tree height. The reviewed model explains most of the measurements but it leaves some unanswered questions, for example that the vegetation coherence depends on the interferometric baseline. Model reconstructed values also show interesting relations to some weather conditions.