Susan Campbell, M.S. student
Natural Resources: Forestry

Research Title: Measuring Forest Biomass in New Hampshire Using Multi-band Multi-Polarization Radar Data

Advisor: Dr. Mark Ducey

Description of Research

Accurate measures of forest biomass are needed for calculating such things as the carbon storage potential of forests. New Hampshire has a large amount of forested land area that is covered by different forest types and has varied slopes and elevation. Using field measurements on sites selected throughout New Hampshire and southern Maine calculations of forest biomass will be made. Then SIR-C/X-SAR data, a multi-band multi-polarization radar dataset acquired in 1994, will be used to calculate forest biomass for the same areas.

This project will compare the accuracy of the radar-based measurements to the field-based measurements of forest biomass on a variety of terrain types. Two sites will have generally level terrain, two sites will be more hilly with some significant, but not extreme, changes in elevation, and the remaining two sites will be in mountainous terrain.