Conference Agenda

The ESA BIOMASS mission, successfully launched on 29 April 2025, is the first spaceborne P-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) dedicated to continental-scale mapping of forest biomass, height, and disturbance. The first acquired datasets demonstrate excellent radiometric and interferometric quality, confirming the instrument’s unprecedented sensitivity to forest above-ground biomass density (AGBD) and vertical structure.

In this contribution, we present an intercomparison of AGBD maps over the Amazon forest, generated using an updated variant of the global BIOMASS AGBD mapping algorithm. As the primary AGBD predictors, we use three distinct datasets acquired during the commissioning phase:

(i) Level-1B backscatter coefficients,

(ii) Level-2A ground-cancelled backscatter, and

(iii) interferometric phase height at P-band.

As an independent reference, we employ X-band phase-centre height-based AGBD estimates, previously shown to exhibit a sensitivity to biomass comparable to that of airborne lidar.

We evaluate how the inclusion of Level-2A ground-cancellation processing and P-band interferometric phase height enhances the sensitivity of BIOMASS observables to AGBD and improves retrieval robustness relative to conventional backscatter-only approaches. Furthermore, we assess the accuracy and stability of biomass estimates derived directly from the P-band phase-centre height.

These preliminary results provide one of the first demonstrations of the BIOMASS mission’s capability for large-scale AGBD estimation, paving the way for robust, continental-scale biomass mapping and monitoring once the mission enters its operational phase in 2026.