Monitoring of the forests state in the Chernobyl area using remote sensing data

The study of the area of Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) using spaceborne SAR and optical data is devoted to the monitoring of the forests state in the surrounding area. The use of a SIR-C/X datatake from SRL-2 flight and series of ERS SAR data for the year interval 1992-1997, obtained at different meteorological conditions and in different seasons of the year, JERS-1 along with optical data were discovered to be very helpful for the classification of vegetation types, study of the forests state after the nuclear accident in the area. Various products derived from remote sensing data allowed to detect forest fire areas and to make conclusion about domination of damage from fires occurred significantly later the accident.