Mapping of wind-thrown forests in Southern Sweden using space- and airborne SAR

Space- and airborne SAR have a potential for providing timely information of forest storm damage. In this paper, we compare Envisat, Radarsat and CARABAS with aerial photography and field observations after a severe storm event. The spaceborne C-band images were not able to detect the storm- damaged areas due to unfavorable frequency band and coarse resolution. The airborne CARABAS VHF SAR, on the other hand, detects most storm-damaged forest areas and even partly damaged which are often not detected in the aerial photography.