A review of underlying topography estimation over forest areas by In SAR: Theory, advances, challenges and perspectives

The paramount importance and multi-purpose applications of underlying topography over forest areas have gained widespread recognition over recent decades, bringing about a variety of experimental studies on accurate underlying topography mapping. The highly spatial and temporal dynamics of forest scenarios makes traditional measuring techniques difficult to construct the precise underlying topography surface. Microwave remote sensing has been demonstrated as a promising technique to retrieve the underlying topography over large areas within a limited period, including synthetic aperture radar interferometry(InSAR), polarimetric InSAR(PolInSAR) and tomographic SAR(TomoSAR). In this paper, firstly, the main principle of digital elevation model(DEM) generation by InSAR and SAR data acquisition over forest area are introduced. Following that, several methods of underlying topography extraction based on InSAR, PolInSAR, and TomoSAR are introduced and analyzed, as well as their applications and performance are discussed afterwards. Finally, four aspects of challenge are highlighted, including SAR data acquisition, error compensation and correction, scattering model reconstruction and solution strategy of multi-source data, which needs to be further addressed for robust underlying topography estimation.

Accuracy assessment of ICESat-2 ATL 08 terrain estimates:A case study in Spain

The Ice,Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2(ICESat-2),a new spaceborne light detection and ranging(LiDAR)system,was successfully launched on September 15,2018.The ICESat-2 data increase the types of spaceborne LiDAR data archive and provide new control point data for large-scale topographic mapping and geodetic surveying.However,the accuracy of the ATL 08 terrain estimates has not been fully evaluated on a large scale and in complex terrain conditions.This article aims to quantitatively assess the accuracy of ICESat-2 ATL 08 terrain estimates.Firstly,the ICESat-2 ATL 08 terrain estimates were compared with the high-precision airborne LiDAR digital terrain model(DTM),and impacts of acquisition time,vegetation cover type,terrain slope,and season change on the terrain estimation accuracy were analyzed.We get the following conclusions from the analysis:1)the mean and RMSE of the terrain estimates of day acquisitions are 0.22 m and 0.59 m higher than that of night acquisitions;2)the accuracy of the ATL 08 terrain estimates acquired in vegetated areas is lower than those in non-vegetated areas;3)the accuracy of the ATL 08 terrain estimates is inversely proportional to the slope,and the elevation error increases significantly when the terrain slope is larger than 30°;4)in the non-vegetation covered area,the accuracy of the ATL 08 terrain estimates of summer and winter acquisitions has no obvious discrepancy,but in vegetated area,the accuracy of winter acquisitions is significantly better than that of summer acquisitions.This research provides references for the selection and application of ICESat-2 data.