Customised EO products can be delivered on stem volume in tropical as well as boreal forests with typically 30 m resolution on a large spatial scale. The EO techniques use radar pulses to penetrate into the forest canopy where the return signal is used to derive information on stem volume. The EO derived stem volume can then be related to above ground biomass and carbon stock by calibrating and correlating with in situ data. In this way EO adds a spatial dimension to existing in situ estimates of biomass. Using EO change detection techniques, forest degradation by the decrease in forest biomass/diversity can also be estimated. It should be noted that these services are customised solutions and accuracies must be estimated on a case by case basis. However, since few conventional methods can assess biomass on large spatial scales attention should be given to this product. The development of EO biomass estimations will be even more interesting to follow with the launch of the Sentinel-1 satellite which allows for more timely estimations of forest changes. |