FOREST HEIGHT AND GROUND TOPOGRAPHY AT L-BAND FROM AN EXPERIMENTAL SINGLE-PASS AIRBORNE POL-INSAR SYSTEM

Many applications require bare-earth Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) in the presence of forest canopy. L-Band is an attractive candidate, but the derived interferometric phase represents a combination of ground and volume scattering contributions from the canopy above. The use of PolInSAR techniques, and the Random Volume Over Ground (RVOG) Model has had considerable success in model inversion studies where the objective has been to extract tree height. A major problem for the robust application of this technique is the presence of temporal decorrelation, caused by the use of repeat-pass interferometry. In this paper we will present the current results of canopy height and DTM estimation in forested areas using an experimental airborne, single-pass, L-Band PolInSAR system for which temporal decorrelation is not an issue