Tomographic imaging of tropical forests: perspectives for the BIOMASS Mission

The next ESA Earth Explorer Core Mission BIOMASS is envisaged to collect multiple baselines during the initial phase of its lifetime. Such data will allow a vertical resolution of about 20 m, sufficient to decompose the backscattered power from a tropical forest into two to three layers. A recent study on the site of Paracou, French Guiana, has shown that this information helps improve forest above ground biomass retrieval, final accuracy being assessed in about 10% at a resolution of 1.5-ha using airborne data from the TropiSAR campaign. In this paper we aim at making a first step towards a generalization of this result, by i) considering a new test-site (Nouragues, central French Guiana) and ii) taking into account the 6 MHz bandwidth limit imposed by ITU regulations. The results support the claim that BIOMASS tomography could be used to assess above ground biomass in tropical forests to within an accuracy of 11% at a resolution of 4-ha.