JERS-1/SAR backscatter and its relationship with biomass of regenerating forests

It has been hypothesized that regenerating tropical forests are large atmos pheric carbon sinks. Accurate estimates of the location, extent and biomass of regenerating tropical forests are needed in order to quantify their con tribution to global carbon budgets. Synthetic Aperture Radar ( SAR) data ar e independent of near-constant tropical cloud cover and have proved useful for locating and mapping the extent of regenerating tropical forests. To es timate the biomass of regenerating tropical forests we need to determine th e nature and strength of the relationship between radar backscatter and bio mass for different types of regenerating forest. To further investigate thi s, two extreme forms of regenerating forest were considered; they were bloc k-logged (clear-cut) forest in the Tapajo's area of Para' State, Brazil and selectively-logged forest in Southern Cameroon. Biomass was estimated alom etrically for 15 plots in Tapajo's and 34 plots in Cameroon and was related to L-band backscatter derived from the JERS-1 SAR. The relationship betwee n backscatter and biomass was strong for the Tapajo's study area and weak f or the Cameroonian study area. It was concluded that there is potential for the use of JERS-1/SAR to locate, map and estimate biomass for young regene rating forests following block-logging rather than selective-logging.