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Conference paper2002Peer reviewed

Forestry Applications of CARABAS

Smith, G.; Folkesson, K.; Fransson, J.E.S.; et al.

Abstract

CARABAS is an airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, operating in the lower VHF-band (20-90 MHz). Developed by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, CARABAS is a unique remote sensing sensor, in that the wavelengths used are extremely long (3-15 m), and hence can penetrate virtually unaffected through dense forest canopies. This means that CARABAS can be used for making direct measurements of tree trunks, which, combined with the high spatial resolution (3 m), is the reason that CARABAS has shown promising results for many different applications of forestry remote sensing. In this paper we provide a review of some of the results obtained with CARABAS in coniferous forests (mainly in Sweden). The studies have included semi-automated mapping of forest stem volume, measurement of forest growth, mapping of forest stand boundaries and within stand variations, identification of storm damages, identification and measurement of thinning cuttings and individual tree detection. In all of these research studies the unique properties of CARABAS images have been utilized to provide information that can be of use in practical forest inventory, which is demonstrated with some results from an ongoing pilot project.

Keywords

CARABAS; forest stem volume mapping; change detection; individual tree mapping

Published in

Title: FORESTSAT 2002: Operational Tools in Forestry Using Remote Sensing Techniques : Conference Papers : August 5th-9th, 2002
Publisher: Forestry Commission

Conference

ForestSat 2002, Operational Tools in Forestry Using Remote Sensing Techniques, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, August 5th-9th of August 2002

SLU Authors

  • Fransson, Johan

    • Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

  • Magnusson, Mattias

    • Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Associated SLU-program

Remningstorp

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/139277