Article Capability of C-Band SAR for Operational Wetland Monitoring at High Latitudes

• Main Authors: Julia Reschke, Annett Bartsch, Stefan Schlaffer, Dmitry Schepaschenko
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Asar; permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.360.7315; http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/4/10/2923/pdf/

Abstract: Wetlands store large amounts of carbon, and depending on their status and type, they release specific amounts of methane gas to the atmosphere. The connection between wetland type and methane emission has been investigated in various studies and utilized in climate change monitoring and modelling. For improved estimation of methane emissions, land surface models require information such as the wetland fraction and its dynamics over large areas. Existing datasets of wetland dynamics present the total amount of wetland (fraction) for each model grid cell, but do not discriminate the different wetland types like permanent lakes, periodically inundated areas or peatlands. Wetland types differently influence methane fluxes and thus their contribution to the total wetland fraction should be quantified. Especially wetlands of permafrost regions are expected to have a strong impact on future climate due to soil thawing. In this study ENIVSAT ASAR Wide Swath data was tested for operational monitoring of the distribution of areas with a long-term SW near 1 (hSW) in northern Russia (SW = degree of saturation with water, 1 = saturated), which is a specific characteristic of peatlands. For the whole northern Russia, areas with hSW were delineated and discriminated from dynamic and open water bodies for the years 2007