Journal article

Monitoring live fuel moisture in semiarid environments using L-band radar data - See more at: http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/WF14149.htm#sthash.m1FnuFGB.dpuf

undefined Tanase, undefined Panciera, undefined Lowell, C APONTE

International Journal of Wildland Fire | CSIRO Publishing | Published : 2015

Abstract

Timely information on spatial variation of live fuel moisture is critical for fire risk assessment and behaviour modelling. Using an airborne synthetic aperture radar system, the sensitivity of radar data to live fuel (i.e. canopy foliage) moisture was evaluated. Field and airborne measurements were collected over a 3-week period in a semiarid AUSn forest dominated by white cypress pine (Callitris glaucophylla). Linear regression models were used to relate equivalent water thickness and live fuel moisture content to backscatter intensity and polarimetric decomposition components. Results showed that radar systems can provide estimates of live fuel moisture with similar or better accuracies f..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by German Aerospace Center


Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC)


Awarded by ARC


Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Alvin Goh and Mark Williams for assisting with the PLIS calibration, and the SMAPEx experiment participants for support with field data collection. The German Aerospace Center is acknowledged for providing the TerraSAR/TanDEM-X data (project XTI VEGE0896). The study was conducted under an Australian Research Council (ARC) Superscience Fellowship (FS100100040). The field work was supported by the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information and ARC Discovery Project DP0984586.