This article demonstrates how 3-D vegetation structure can be approximated by interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) backscatter-height histograms. Single-look backscatter measurements are plotted against the InSAR phase height and are aggregated spatially over a forest patch to form a 3-D histogram, referred to as InSAR backscatter-height histogram or simply InSAR histogram. InSAR histograms resemble LiDAR waveforms, suggesting that existing algorithms used to retrieve canopy height and ground topography from radar tomograms or LiDAR waveforms can be applied to InSAR histograms. Three algorithms are evaluated to generate maps of digital terrain, surface, and canopy height models: Gaussian decomposition, quantile, and backscatter threshold. Full-polarimetric L-band uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar (UAVSAR) data collected over the Gabonese Lopé National Park during the 2016 AfriSAR campaign are used to illustrate and compare the performance of the algorithms for the HH, HV, VV, HH+VV, and HH-VV polarimetric channels. Results show that radar-derived maps using the InSAR histograms differ by 4 m (top-canopy), 5 m (terrain), and 6 m (forest height) in terms of average root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) from standard maps derived from full-waveform laser, vegetation, and ice sensor (LVIS) LiDAR measurements.

This article describes a projection algorithm between radar and map coordinates based on the representation of radar samples as area elements (AEs) rather than point elements. Each AE on the map grid (geographic grid) is associated with a number of radar grid samples that intersect completely or partially the AE. The association enables the geocoding (i.e., the map projection of radar imagery) with adaptive multilooking, accurately accounting for all radar samples contributing to the geocoded elements according to topography and radar geometry. By using averaging rather than interpolation, the proposed projection does not suffer from interpolation overfitting. The area-based geocoding also enables the generation of the geocoded polarimetric covariance matrix (GCOV) and geocoded synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferograms with adaptive multilooking. Analogously, the slant-range projection of geocoded data is improved by projecting geographic grid pixels onto the radar grid according to their corresponding location based on the radar geometry without leaving gaps. This approach is used to reduce the computation time of previously published radiometric terrain correction (RTC) algorithms, performing 3.6–6.5 times faster over multilooked data and up to 26.3 times faster over single-look data. We demonstrate the strengths of the proposed area projection (AP) algorithm for RTC and geocoding using Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle SAR (UAVSAR), Sentinel-1B, and ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 data, and evaluate the results in the context of the upcoming NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) mission.

Forest above-ground biomass (AGB) estimation from SAR backscatter is affected by varying imaging and environmental conditions. This paper quantifies and compares the performance of forest biomass estimation from L-band SAR backscatter measured selectively under dry and wet conditions during the 2019 AM-PM NASA airborne campaign. Seven Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) images acquired between June and October 2019 over a temperate deciduous forest in Southeastern United States with varying moisture and precipitation conditions are examined in conjunction with LIDAR and field measurements. Biomass is estimated by fitting a 3-parameter modified Water Cloud Model (WCM) to radiometric terrain corrected SAR backscatter. Our experiment is designed to quantify the biomass estimation errors when biomass models are calibrated and validated on varying acquisition conditions (dry or wet). Multi-temporal estimation strategies are also evaluated and compared with single-acquisition estimation approaches. As an outcome, the experiment shows that the WCM model calibrated and validated on single acquisitions adapts to different soil moisture conditions with RMSD up to 18.7 Mg/ha. The AGB estimation performance, however, decreases with RMSD upwards of 30 Mg/ha when the model is cross-validated on moisture and precipitation conditions different than the calibration conditions. Results confirm that calibrating the model over the multi-temporal data using averaged backscatter or weighted combinations of individual AGB estimates, improves the biomass estimation accuracy up to about 20% at L-band. This study helps design biomass cal/val procedures and biomass estimation algorithms for dense time-series to be collected by low-frequency radar missions such as NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) and BIOMASS.

Satellite remote sensing data provide key information needed to understand the dynamic behavior of our planet as well as to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. The Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with the US Geological Survey and the University of Maryland, starts releasing near-global products that are based on Harmonized Landsat-8 Sentinel-2 A/B (HLS) optical datasets in February 2023: (1) Dynamic Surface Water eXtent (DSWx-HLS) and (2) Land Surface Disturbance (DIST-HLS) product suites. These derived products have applications including monitoring and guiding future hazard management and recovery efforts. While OPERA does not have an urgent response requirement for disasters, the project will process and deliver the data to end-users as soon as possible. HLS has 2-3 day revisit frequency at the equator allowing the potential for OPERA products to help provide analysis ready data from before, during, and after some events to aid disaster response and recovery efforts. All the DSWx and DIST products will be freely available to the public through various Distributed Active Archive Centers (PO.DAAC for DSWx, https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/; LPDAAC for DIST, https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/) and NASA’s Earthdata Search platform based on their scheduled operational release.Here, we present applications of the first provisional products from the DSWx-HLS and DIST-HLS suites to monitor changes in water bodies and vegetation cover due to droughts, floods, and wildfires. In particular, we focus our analysis on: (a) drastic extent changes in reservoirs, such as for Lake Mead from 2014-present, (b) mapping flood extents such as the 2020 dam failures in Midland, Michigan, and (c) mapping burned areas due to wildfires such as the 2022 wildfires in New Mexico and in California. We develop open-source tutorials using GIS software and Jupyter Notebooks to visualize and showcase these applications. Both the provisional data and the tutorials are available on the OPERA website (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/go/opera) to ensure broad access and reproducibility.