Remote Sensing of Above Ground Biomass

Abstract

Vegetation biomass plays a crucial role in understanding and monitoring ecosystem response, and its contribution to the global carbon cycle. The recognition of forests as potential sinks of atmospheric carbon has resulted in numerous studies being conducted in estimating above-ground biomass or carbon stocks across varying scales. In addition, grassland biomass quantification is critical in understanding rangeland productivity as a resource for animal grazing. However, uncertainties in the remote sensing of AGB (Above Ground Biomass) are high due to vegetation structural variations, heterogeneity of landscapes, seasonality and disproportionate data availability, among others. Recent developments in high resolution space-borne and air-borne satellite data have provided an opportunity to better estimate and map AGB across different spatial and temporal scales. The use of drones and UAVs has opened up avenues for super-fine resolution biomass estimation for targeted applications. Recent sensors, such as the Worldview series, now provide meter level spatial resolution, while Sentinel and Landsat 8 provide free data for the whole world, opening up accessibility and more applications of Remote Sensing data, including for biomass estimation.