Archive | 2021
Mapping catastrophic ice damage in forested area: a case study for a deciduous forest in Hungary
Abstract
In December 2014 a catastrophic ice disturbance affected the forests of the Börzsöny Mts., Hungary. Planning salvage logging is an urgent task after such events. The use of Earth Observation (EO) data in near real-time could facilitate such planning at a critical time. However, conventional remote sensing studies apply data of passive multispectral sensors, hence the earliest post-event canopy cover damages could be examined only after foliation. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is an active remote sensing technique, which could be used for the detection of forest disturbances even outside the vegetation period. Due to its 12 days revisit time Sentinel-1 may play an important role in the fast detection of the damaged forests in the case of such events. In this work, we analyze the potential of Sentinel-1 SAR data in mapping natural disturbances in forests, through the 2014 ice break event.