Backscattering from forest canopies over slanted terrain

A model based on the radiative transfer formulation has been modified to account for the effects of the terrain slope on the total backscattering return from a forest canopy. To the first-order, the forested area may be modeled as a plane parallel forest but over a slanted ground plane. Thus the phase matrix for the volume scattering from any forest component remains the same as that of the same forest component over a flat ground plane. But the phase matrices for the canopy-ground interaction and direct ground scattering are different. This approach gives simple and intuitive view of the problem and helps to identify the important scattering elements. It is shown that the overall effect of the terrain slope is dependent on frequency, incident angle, and polarization. In the cases of P-band, and for small look angles and VV polarization, the backscattering coefficient increases as the ground tilts towards the radar. On the other hand, for HH polarization, the backscattering coefficient is maximum when the slope is zero and decreases if the slope deviates from zero