Monitoring tropical forests from satellite and aircroft platforms: some limitations and new approaches
Tropical forests have great importance with respect to the global energy balance, climate, geochemical cycling and various beneficial resources they provide to mankind. The complexity of mixed tropical forest has little parallel with the coniferous forests of North America where much of the previous remote sensing applications have been demonstrated. Frequent cloud cover, inaccessible terrain, data acquisition problems, and closed, diverse forest canopies with high leaf area indices great challenges for remote sensing studies in tropical regions. Studies in Puerto Rico with aircraft acquired TMS have shown spectral differences related to forest successional stages and mountain life zone communities. In consideration of the persisten cloud cover over tropical regions, different polarizations of aircraft L-band, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data were analyzed to determine the relationship between SAR backscatter and forests structure parameters. A multisensor approach combined with field studies are presented to address ecological studies in tropical environments. Remote sensing techniques are viewed as technology with great potential to contribute new information and scientific understanding of critical global environmental issues in tropical regions
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | biblioteca |
| Published: |
[sl], 1985
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| Subjects: | BOSQUE HUMEDO, TROPICO HUMEDO, AMERICA LATINA, COSTA RICA, PUERTO RICO, |
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