Spectral reflectance and radar backscatter of dominant tree species in Swedish forests

Forests covers 70% of Sweden, and there around 87 billion trees according to Swedish Forest Industries. Norway Spruce (Picea Abies), Scots Pine (Pinus silvestris), and Birch (Betula spp.) represent 92% of the standing timber volume. Developing an efficient country-wide monitoring protocol of this resource is essential for maintaining ecosystem services and economic viability, as well as land management and biodiversity conservation. This presentation shows preliminary results of dimensionality reduction and clustering techniques to detect thresholds of separation between spruce, pine and birch in terms of their spectral reflectance and radar backscatter. This work also evaluates the role of forest properties such as tree height and volume in influencing the spectral reflectance and radar backscatter observed by the satellite sensors.