Application of remote sensing in forest aboveground biomass estimation
Biomass is an important variable in many ecological and environmental models, and its large scale estimation would be helpful to understand the global C balance. Forest plays an important role in the global carbon budget because it determines the dynamics of terrestrial carbon cycle, but the measurement of its aboveground biomass involves extensive field surveys. On large regional scale, using satellite data is an effective way to estimate forest biomass. Up to now, TM, AVHRR, radar data and the fusion of multiple satellite data have been widely used in forest biomass estimation. During estimating with satellite data, different mathematic methods may be required if the data sources are different. The main methods for the estimation are correlation analysis, regression analysis, neural network, and other mathematic models. New instruments with different resolution in spatial, temporal and spectrum are devised for the relatively reliable determination of forest aboveground biomass. With the development and improvement of the theories and models for biomass estimation by using remote sensing data, great progress will be achieved in the research of forest biomass on large scales.