Assessment of forest structure estimation by means of SAR Tomography: Potential and limitations

Systems based on Synthetic Aperture Radar Tomography at low frequencies offer 3D imaging capabilities, appropriate for forest monitoring. However the extraction of an ecologically meaningful measure of forest structure from the 3D reflectivity is not straightforward and several considerations need to be carefully taken into account, in order to avoid misinterpretations of the nature of the information reflected in the tomograms. Besides, it should be noted that the methodology employed in the TomoSAR inversion has a significant effect on the overall performance of the TomoSAR system to estimate forest structure. In this framework, this paper discusses the potential and limitations of TomoSAR systems for forest structure estimation.