Detection of forest canopy change in pan-tropical humid forests 2000-2009 with the SeaWinds Ku-band scatterometer

Steve Frolking, University of New Hampshire, steve.frolking@unh.edu
Stephen Hagen, Applied Geosolutions, LLC, steve.hagen@agsemail.com
Thomas Milliman, Complex System Research Center, thomas.milliman@unh.edu
Michael Palace, CSRC-University of New Hampshire, michael.palace@unh.edu (Presenter)
Julia Shimbo, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil, juliazanin@hotmail.com
Mark Fahnestock, Complex System Research Center, mark.fahnestock@unh.edu

We analyzed the 10-year record (1999-2009) of SeaWinds Ku-band microwave backscatter from humid tropical forest regions in South America, Africa, and Indonesia/Malaysia. While backscatter was relatively stable across much of the region, it declined by 1-2 dB in areas of known large-scale deforestation, and increased by up to 1-2 dB in areas of secondary forest or plantation forest growth and in major metropolitan areas. The reduction in backscatter over 142 18.5km x 18.5 km blocks of tropical forest was correlated with gross forest cover loss (as determined from Landsat data analysis) (R = -0.78); this correlation improved when restricted to humid tropical forest blocks in South America with high initial forest cover (R = -0.93, n=22). This study shows that scatterometer-based analyses can provide an important geophysical data record leading to robust identification of the spatial patterns and timing of change, because of uniform sampling and simplified analysis such data allow.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Other   (Tue 11:30 AM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Frolking, Steve: Imaging Impacts of Seasonal Water Stress on Vegetation at Basin to Regional Scales: Combining Optical and Microwave Remote Sensing with Hydrological Measurements to Understand Change ...details
• Palace, Michael: Scaling Forest Biometric Properties Derived from High Resolution Imagery to the Amazon Basin using Moderate Resolution Spectral Reflectance Data ...details

Poster Location ID: 272