Height retrieval and vertical accuracy for quantifying biomass and carbon stock

Forest height estimation is very important in order to estimate biomass or volume of the tree. Various method and technique can be used to estimate the height. However, the accuracy is a main challenge to meet the requirement. Interferometry Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR) Intermap X-band is one of the technology that have potential in estimating tree height. It is an active remote sensing that penetrates in a single polarization by using short wavelength, X-band with 3cm. This paper introduces of method to retrieval height and accuracy of vertical height from GPS and DTM IFSAR. Height retrieval from DSM and DTM is used to derive height difference of features including tree height. Height difference is from subtraction of DSM and DTM from IFSAR. The height difference then was categorized into three categories which are zero, negative and positive values. Positive value of height represents the highest percentage, 94.86% rather than zero and negative values 1.96% and 3.17%. Positive values are very important because it represent the ground surface on the earth including the man-made and natural features. While RMSE for vertical accuracy between height derived from GPS and DTM IFSAR is about 0.88m with R
²
= 0.78. This finding show strong relationship between height derived from GPS and DTM IFSAR.