Special Issue "SAR for Forest Mapping II"

Abstract

As a vital natural resource, forests are of extreme importance for all living beings on our planet. They play a key role in controlling climate change, represent an essential source of energy (e.g., biomass), food, jobs, and livelihoods, and serve as natural habitat to a large variety of animal species, which is essential for biodiversity preservation. Forest ecosystems are constantly shaped and changed by physical and biological disturbances and eventual regeneration processes. Today, forest degradation is occurring at an alarming rate, often due to illegal anthropogenic activities such as logging and fires, such that sensitive environments have been irreversibly damaged, with critical environmental and economic consequences at regional as well as at global scale. A precise and efficient assessment and monitoring of the forest resources, treatments, and recreational opportunities is therefore of crucial importance in order to develop early warning systems. In this scenario, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing represents a unique technique for providing high-resolution images independently of daylight and almost any weather conditions. In the last few decades, SAR imaging has demonstrated its suitability for forest mapping applications. The combination of the polarimetric, interferometric, and/or tomographic information further increases its capabilities and the achievable product accuracy.