Initial observations of Radarsat imagery at fire-disturbed sites in interior Alaska

Previous research has shown that wet soil conditions found at fire-disturbe d sites in the boreal region produce bright backscatter on ERS imagery comp ared with the surrounding unburned forest. ERS-2 and Radarsat imagery colle cted at two incidence angles is presented and compared. Measured brightness is also compared to backscatter model results. It is found that Radarsat i magery collected at incidence angles similar to ERS-2 results in a similar, relatively bright backscatter from the fires scar, while backscatter from Radarsat image collected at a higher incidence angle is relatively dark. Mo del results confirm that incidence angle is critical in determining the rel ative brightness of the backscatter from fire scars. These results have imp lications when looking at broad-coverage SAR images which span a large rang e of incidence angles from near to far range. (C)Elsevier Science Inc., 199 9.