Forest monitoring in Congo Basin with combined use of SAR C- & L-band

The objective of the paper is to compare and combine Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) C- and L-band data for tropical forest monitoring over a study area located in the west of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the Congo Basin. For C-band ERS-2 SAR data as well as ASAR Alternating Polarization (AP) and Wide-Swath (WS) mode images were available. For L-band PALSAR Fine Beam Single (FBS) and Fine Beam Dual (FBD) polarization scenes were used. SAR data from 1995 to 2011 were analyzed. The overall aim is to improve forest and sub-forest classification by using time series with the given challenge of working with data from different sensors, acquisition modes and dates. This statistical pre-study of backscatter signals of three specific land cover types, forest, swamp forest and non-forest areas, has therefore been carried out. The data is examined on a yearly, seasonal and diurnal basis with a major focus on backscatter differences between the dry and the wet season.