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The NASA AfriSAR campaign: Airborne SAR and lidar measurements of tropical forest structure and biomass in support of current and future space missions

Fatoyinbo, T; Armston, J; Simard, M; Saatchi, S; Denbina, M; Lavalle, M; Hofton, M; ... Hibbard, K; + view all (2021) The NASA AfriSAR campaign: Airborne SAR and lidar measurements of tropical forest structure and biomass in support of current and future space missions. Remote Sensing of Environment , 264 , Article 112533. 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112533. Green open access

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Abstract

In 2015 and 2016, the AfriSAR campaign was carried out as a collaborative effort among international space and National Park agencies (ESA, NASA, ONERA, DLR, ANPN and AGEOS) in support of the upcoming ESA BIOMASS, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) and NASA Global Ecosystem Dynamics Initiative (GEDI) missions. The NASA contribution to the campaign was conducted in 2016 with the NASA LVIS (Land Vegetation and Ice Sensor) Lidar, the NASA L-band UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar). A central motivation for the AfriSAR deployment was the common AGBD estimation requirement for the three future spaceborne missions, the lack of sufficient airborne and ground calibration data covering the full range of ABGD in tropical forest systems, and the intercomparison and fusion of the technologies. During the campaign, over 7000 km2 of waveform Lidar data from LVIS and 30,000 km2 of UAVSAR data were collected over 10 key sites and transects. In addition, field measurements of forest structure and biomass were collected in sixteen 1-hectare sized plots. The campaign produced gridded Lidar canopy structure products, gridded aboveground biomass and associated uncertainties, Lidar based vegetation canopy cover profile products, Polarimetric Interferometric SAR and Tomographic SAR products and field measurements. Our results showcase the types of data products and scientific results expected from the spaceborne Lidar and SAR missions; we also expect that the AfriSAR campaign data will facilitate further analysis and use of waveform lidar and multiple baseline polarimetric SAR datasets for carbon cycle, biodiversity, water resources and more applications by the greater scientific community.

Type: Article
Title: The NASA AfriSAR campaign: Airborne SAR and lidar measurements of tropical forest structure and biomass in support of current and future space missions
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112533
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112533
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: AfriSAR, LVIS, UAVSAR, GEDI, NISAR, BIOMASS, Gabon, Central Africa, Airborne Campaigns, Forest Structure, Lidar, SAR, PolInSAR, Tropical Forest
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10132381
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