Estimating Canopy Fuel Parameters in a Pacific Northwest Conifer Forest Using Multifrequency Polarimetric Ifsar

Fire researchers and managers need accurate, reliable, and efficiently-obtained data for the development and application of crown fire behavior models. In particular, reliable estimates of critical canopy structure characteristics, including canopy bulk density, canopy height, canopy base height, and canopy fuel weight are required to accurately map fuel loading and model fire behavior over the landscape. The use of polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (IFSAR), a high-resolution active remote sensing technology, provides for accurate and efficient estimation of crown fire behavior variables over extensive areas of forest. In this study, estimates of crown fuel variables were developed from the polarimetric backscatter and interferometric information (elevation, coherence and phase) for an IFSAR dataset acquired within a coniferous forest in western Washington State, USA. Multiple regression analysis showed that plot-level IFSAR-based canopy fuel estimates were highly correlated with field-based fuel measurements of canopy height (R = 0.89), canopy base height (R = 0.85), canopy bulk density (R = 0.74), and canopy fuel weight (R = 0.77). * Corresponding author.