A comparative study of coherence information by L-band and C-band SAR for detecting deforestation in tropical rain forest

The author studied the applicability of coherence information by C-band SAR from ERS-1 and 2 together with by L-band SAR from JERS-1 for the purpose of monitoring the changes of tropical rain forest due to deforestation. The test site was a southern part of Sumatra Island with 50 by 50 kilometers coverage. The results of this study indicated that the coherence obtained from a repeat-pass pair by C-band SAR was almost useless due to its extremely poor quality. On the other hand, the coherence obtained from a repeat-pass pair by L-band SAR was proved to be useful for identifying the deforested areas together with the coherence obtained from a tandem pair by ERS-1/2. This result suggests the usefulness and the importance of repeat-pass interferometry by L-band SAR like ALOS/PALSAR for the purpose of monitoring tropical rain forest changes.