Characterization of forests and deforestation in Cambodia using ALOS/PALSAR observation

In this study, we have demonstrated the capability of full polarimetric ALOS/Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar data for the characterization of the forests and deforestation in Cambodia, to support climate change mitigation policies of Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). We have observed mean backscattering coefficient (sigma degrees), entropy (H), alpha angle (alpha), anisotropy (A), pedestal height (PH), Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) and Freeman-Durden three-component decomposition parameters. The observations show that the forest types and deforested area are showing variable polarimetric and backscattering properties because of the structural difference. Evergreen forest is characterized by a high value of sigma degrees HV (-12.96 dB) as compared with the deforested area (sigma degrees HV = -22.2 dB). The value of polarimetric parameters such as entropy (0.93), RVI (0.91), PH (0.41) and Freeman-Durden volume scattering (0.43) is high for evergreen forest, whereas deforested area is characterized by the low values of entropy (0.36) and RVI (0.17). Based on these parameters, it is found that sigma degrees HV, entropy, RVI and PH provide best results among other parameters.