Influence of acquisition conditions on forest classification using L-band Pol-inSAR data

This paper introduces an approach to forest mapping and classification using complementary polarimetric and interferometric information. Strictly polarimetric and polarimetric interferometric data are first analyzed and classified separately. Pertinent polarimetric indicators permit to classify the observed scene into three canonical scattering types, whereas the segmentation of an optimized interferometric coherency set leads to the discrimination of decorrelating volumetric media used ton infer a forest map. The classification of forest constituents is achieved by means of a supervised Pol-inSAR classifier. The influence of temporal and spatial baselines is investigated and it is shown that temporal decorrelation may be a severe limitation for forest classification at L band