Conference Agenda

Accurate, high-resolution mapping of above-ground forest biomass density (AGBD) is essential for carbon accounting, sustainable forest management, and ecosystem monitoring. While missions such as GEDI, NISAR, BIOMASS, and the ESA CCI Biomass project have advanced global biomass estimation, producing consistent, wall-to-wall, and accurate products with both high spatial and temporal resolution across diverse ecosystems remains a major challenge.

A complementary approach exploits TanDEM-X digital elevation models (DEMs) together with coarse-resolution digital terrain models (DTMs), where the DEM–DTM difference serves as a proxy for canopy height and biomass. With the NASA–ISRO NISAR mission, the ESA BIOMASS mission (successfully launched on 29 April 2025 and set to deliver a global DTM), and the forthcoming ESA ROSE-L mission, synergistic use of P-, L-, C-, and X-band SAR data offers unprecedented potential for long-term, continental-scale AGBD monitoring at sub-hectare and monthly scales.

Within the FORBEAR project, we produced national AGBD maps for Spain, Poland and the Netherlands using the 12 m TanDEM-X DEM, national lidar DTMs, and simple one- and two-parameter models. Comparisons with national forest inventory data show that AGBD can be estimated accurately using simple models that leverage the strengths of individual datasets. We also analysed Sentinel-1 polarimetric backscatter and repeat-pass temporal coherence time series over forest dynamics plots, revealing distinct spatial and seasonal patterns linked to forest structure and moisture variability.

With the recent launches of BIOMASS and NISAR, and the upcoming ROSE-L mission, a clear roadmap is emerging toward accurate, frequent, and synergistic AGBD mapping from multi-frequency SAR systems. This presentation will show our recent results and outline the path toward global, operational biomass monitoring.