Estimations of deciduous forest biomass by analyzing vegetation microwave emission

Forest is important in global carbon cycle and has potential impact on global climatic change. Whether the soil moisture under forest area can be detected by microwave emission signature is unknown due to the dense forest cover. Also, the relationship between forest biomass and its microwave emissivity and transmissivity is of interest to be studied. The microwave emission contribution received by the radiometer above the forest canopy comes from both the soil surface and vegetation layer. In this study, a high-order emission model, Matrix-Doubling, was employed to simulate the emissivity of a young deciduous forest. A field experiment before and after watering the deciduous tree stand was carried in June 5, 2011 in Baoding, China to verify the model, and to measure the tree transmissivity. A tree was selected to be cut to measure the tree parameters and weighed its biomass. Assuming the forest as a non-scattering medium, the effective single-scattering albedo is obtained for 0th-order model by fitting the same emissivity from Matrix-Doubling model. For lower albedo which could be ignored, transmissivity of trees can be deduced by measured Brightness Temperatures before and after watering the underlying soil. The relationship between forest biomass and its transmissivity is presented in this paper.