Forest change detection from Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2

satellite images
#
Aire Olesk 1; 2, Kaupo Voormansik 1, Mirjam Phjala3, Mart Noorma1; 2
1
Tartu Observatory, Space Technology Department
Travere, 61602 Estonia, aire@ut.ee
2
University of Tartu, Institute of Physics
Ravila 14c, 50411, Tartu, Estonia
3
University of Tartu, Department of Geography
Vanemuise 46, 51014, Tartu, Estonia

AbstractThis research presents the performance of the
recently launched C-band Sentinel-1 and L-band ALOS-2
satellite missions for detecting forest clear-cuts and thinning in
the winter season in coniferous and deciduous forests within
Estonia. SAR data were acquired from September 2014 to April
2015 to analyze the cross-polarized backscatter dynamics over 76
stands before and after the logging event. Both clear-cuts and
thinning treatments were considered with stand size ranging
from 0.11-6.44 ha and compared to the in situ reference data. The
results show that the accuracy of logging detection is influenced
by the weather conditions as well as the size of the stand. Both
Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 provide reliable forest clear-cut
monitoring and are suitable for an operational change detection
service for forest stands larger than 0.5 ha.
Index Terms Synthetic aperture radar, SAR backscatter,
boreal forest, change detection, clear-cuts, environmental
conditions, Sentinel-1, ALOS-2.
I. INTRODUCTION
An open data policy and a 12-day repeat cycle make
Sentinel-1 an attractive monitoring tool for the forestry sector.
ALOS-2 provides high-resolution stripmap images with a 14-
day revisit time and is the follow-on of the successful L-band
ALOS mission. In Northern Europe, intensive logging takes
place in the winter season when the ground is frozen. Both C-
band and L-band backscatter are influenced by the variation
and dynamics of the seasons as the snow cover properties,
precipitation, thawing and soil frost depth cause changes in
radar response [1]. Images acquired from the same season with
the same weather conditions should be used for better detection
accuracy [2]. In addition, winter storms and illegal logging
create the need for mapping unplanned changes. This
evaluation shows the potential of Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2
mission for forest disturbance detection in Northern European
forests, but also demonstrates the impact of changing weather
conditions and snow cover to the logging detection results.
Forest logging data were collected from local forest owners
to carry out initial tests. Thirteen repeat-pass Sentinel-1 dual-
pol interferometric wide swath (IW) and three ALOS-2 dual-
pol stripmap (SM) images acquired from autumn to winter
were processed and compared with in situ logging data. Clear-
cut detection was carried out over 140 forest stands areas
where logged stands ranged in size from 0.1 to 6.4 ha. In
addition 32 forested stands were included for reference.
Previous research on logging detection from the ALOS
PALSAR winter images has shown a decrease of 2 dB in
stand-wise mean HH-polarized backscatter intensities for clear-
cuts equal or larger than 1.5 ha [2]. Although the HV
backscatter has a very high temporal consistency under
unfrozen conditions [1], long Northern European winters with
low temperatures and varying snow conditions affect radar
backscattering measurements and thereof also change detection
effectiveness. For C-band SAR, a 3-4 dB change in backscatter
was reported as a result of the condition of the snow (wet
snow, dry snow) and different moisture levels on the ground
and in the canopy (Pulliainen et al. 1996). The results from
ERS-1 SAR image showed that a 2 cm thin dry snow layer
compared to unfrozen conditions caused a 1.6 dB drop for
forested areas [3]. Using L-band a 1.5-2.5 dB lower backscatter
was measured for the frozen conditions than for snow and
frost-free conditions [4]. It has been found that signatures
depend on the temperature and the backscatter is low and
dynamic range small (2-4 dB) for temperatures well below 0
degrees [1].
II. DATA
A. SAR Data
Sentinel-1 data were acquired between November 2014 and
April 2015 and L-band ALOS-2 data from September and
November 2014 and February 2015. Cross-polarized
backscatter data were chosen as it shows larger dynamic range
from boreal and hemiboreal forests [1], [5], [6]. Sentinel-1
Interferometric Swath (IW) Ground Range Detected (GRD)
Level-1 products with 20x22 m (rg x az) resolution and 10 x 10
m pixel spacing (rg x az) and ALOS-2 level 1.5 multi-looked
Fine Beam Dual polarization (FBD) 10 m resolution images
were chosen for the analysis. A time series of Sentinel-1 data
(descending, incidence angle at scene centre 38.7, VH-
polarization) and ALOS-2 (ascending, incidence angle at
midswath 31.4, HV-polarization) images were acquired before
and after the logging events. Images were co-registered,
speckle reduced and re-projected to L-EST97 coordinate
system.

978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE 522
 Overall, seven Sentinel-1 images were acquired with
temperatures below zero and six at unfrozen conditions [7].
Only four images were taken during a snow-free period. The
first ALOS-2 image was acquired on a snow-free autumn day,
the second with freezing conditions and a thin snow layer and
the last image with temperature around 0 degrees and thick
snow cover. The backscatter intensity of SAR images was
averaged over every subcompartment and transformed to dB
scale for comparison. Tables I and II give an overview of the
ALOS-2 and Sentinel-1 data sets and weather conditions.

B. Field survey
Over half of Estonia (51.1%) is covered by forest land [8],
the dominant tree species being pine, spruce and birch.
Estonian forests consist mostly of smaller mosaicked and
heterogeneous forest stands. The test sites of the study are
located in South Eastern Estonia in Vru, Plva and Valga
counties (Fig.1), where average size of forest subcompartment
is 1 ha and the mean growing stock volume 230 m3/ha [8].
Data of the logged forest areas and the dates of logging were
acquired from State Forest Management Centre, local forestry
companies and private forest owners.
The experiment was carried out it two parts. First analysis
was to compare Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2 images for a smaller
area, where logging took place in winter months. The second
experiment is based only on Sentinel-1 images and includes
spring clear-cuts and thinning covering a much larger area.
Fig. 1. Clear-cut test sites (red) in South Eastern Estonia
TABLE I. WEATHER CONDITIONS DURING SENTINEL-1 DESCENDING
REPEAT-PASS DATA ACQUISITION
For the first experiment and Sentinel-1 based clear-cut
Date of S-1 Precipitation Temperature detection, 12 logged subcompartments, 6 reference forest
Snow cover
image mm (in the C (24H
acquisition last 12H) mean)
(cm) stands and 4 selective logging stands equal and larger to 1 ha
11/11/2014 0.1 7.6 0 cm (wet) were selected. For further analysis, 14 logged stands and 23
23/11/2014 0.0 -0.3 2 cm (wet) reference stands between 0.5-1.0 ha were chosen. As the
5/12/2014 0.0 0.4 2 cm (wet) ALOS-2 scene did not cover the entire test area, 6 clear-cut
17/12/2014 0.2 3.0 2 cm (wet) subcompartments and 6 reference stands equal or larger than 1
29/12/2014 0.1 -10.6 12 cm (dry)
ha remained for the analysis. For areas between 0.5-1.0 ha, 9
10/01/2015 0.2 -1.6 14.7 cm (wet)
22/01/2015 0.7 -6.5 10.7 cm (dry) logged forests and 15 reference stands were included in the
15/02/2015 0.1 -4.8 15.3 cm (dry) analysis. Meteorological data were acquired from Estonian
27/02/2015 0.0 -0.4 6.7 cm (wet) Weather Service [7] and averaged over three meteorological
11/03/2015 0.0 2.7 0.7 cm (wet) stations closest to the test sites. Field measurements with a
23/03/2015 0.0 -0.6 0 cm GPS were carried out on selected sites to verify the extent of
16/04/2015 8.1 0.4 0 cm
clear-cuts and photograph the conditions of the forest floor
28/04/2015 0.0 12.3 0 cm
(Fig. 2).
TABLE II. WEATHER CONDITIONS DURING ALOS-2 ASCENDING REPEAT-
PASS DATA ACQUISITION

Date of
Precipitation
ALOS-2 Temperature Snow cover
(mm, in the last
image C (24 H mean) (cm)
24H)
acquisition
20/09/2014 0 11.4 0 (dry)
29/11/2014 0 -8.9 2 cm (dry)
07/02/2015 1.0 0.4 13 cm (wet)

Fig. 2. Images taken during the fieldworks to verify the clear-cut and the
amount of wood debris left behind.

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR) 523

 For the second experiment, 81 forest stands were chosen,
where the logging had taken place between 11 Nov 2014 and
26 March 2015 ranging from 0.1 to 6.4 ha. Overall 72% of the
stands were coniferous forests (spruce, pine) and 28 %
deciduous forests (mostly birch). Also nine reference stands
were included where no logging activity took place.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The backscatter intensity of the Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2
images was averaged for each forest stand and converted to dB
scale. The backscattering coefficient dynamics of 13 Sentinel-1
images was observed to see the effects of the weather and snow
cover on the radar backscatter. The results in Fig. 3 clearly
indicate that the image mean 0 is in strong correlation
(r = 0.836) with the temperature and thus has a strong effect
also on change detection when using thresholds. When leaving
April images out from the graph, the correlation coefficient
increases to 0.944, which demonstrates even stronger
correlation between radar backscatter and temperature during
winter months and before the start of vegetation period. Similar
weather-related dynamics was also observed for ALOS-2
images. The difference between frozen and unfrozen dense
forest in this research for winter months was found to be
approximately 4 dB for C-band and 6 dB for L-band.
During the first experiment for Sentinel-1 winter images,
HV channel backscattering coefficient (0) dropped on average
3.24 dB for clear-cuts of 1 ha and larger forest stands compared
to a 1.66 dB decrease in reference forests. Examples of the
backscatter change over nine images and ten stands can be seen
in Fig. 4. Noticeable decrease in 0 on the 29 Dec was the
result of temperature drop to -9.2C. In addition to the clear-cut
Fig. 4. Sentinel-1 HV-polarized backscatter dynamics before and after logging events over nine images.
524 2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)
Fig. 3. Correlation graph of Sentinel-1 image mean HV channel
backscattering coefficient and temperate
detection, one selective logging stand is also presented in Fig.4
where approximately 1/5 of the 5 ha area was cut. The change
in mean backscatter over the entire subcompartment was
similar to reference stands making the smaller change over the
large forested area undetectable.
Test sites between 0.5-1.0 ha resulted in backscattering
drop of 2.53 dB and 2.11 dB for reference stands respectively,
making results from smaller stands less reliable for further
analysis. All clear-cuts on 1 ha and larger areas had a drop in
0 more than 2 dB. Thinning and partial logging detection for
areas larger than 1 ha gave an average drop in backscatter
measurements of 1.64 dB. Noticeable decrease in 0 on the 29
Dec was the result of temperature drop to -9.2C.
For ALOS-2 the HV channel 0 dropped 3.4 dB for logged
stands of 1 ha and larger compared to forested stands of the
similar size where the drop was on average 1.08 dB (Fig. 5).
For stands of 0.5-1.0 ha, the drop in 0 was 3.85 dB and 1.64
respectively. Thinning treatment on one stand resulted in a
drop in 0 of 2.4 dB.

Fig. 5. ALOS-2 VH-polarized backscatter measurements before and
clear-cut.
Backscatter intensity measurements worked well for the
thicker forests but gave mixed results for the forest stands
where approximately half of the subcompartment was densely
forested and half covered by small number of trees. In this case
the dominant backscatter comes from the forest floor rather
than the canopy (volume scattering) and scattering mechanisms
become affected by the environmental conditions [9]. Similar
result could be seen on older logged areas where backscatter
changed more than 2 dB as the result of varying snow and
moisture conditions on the ground. Also some smaller sparse
forests resulted in similar backscatter changes as logged stands.
That can be the result of the dielectric properties of the forest
floor having larger effect on sparse forest [9].
It has been found that the backscatter difference between
frozen and unfrozen forest can be around 3-7 dB [1]. The
ALOS-2 image taken during cold weather conditions
(29/11/2014, -8.9C) was excluded from the analysis as the
other two images were taken with temperatures above 0
degrees and had smaller difference in the mean 0. The
varying temperature can change the radar response, but the
measurements should be consistent over the same conditions as
has been suggested previously [1].
Backscatter had very small dynamics across all images that
were acquired with temperatures above 0 degrees. More than 3
dB drop in backscatter was seen for Sentinel-1 image and over
6 dB for ALOS-2 image when the temperatures fell to -9C.
This weather-induced fluctuation in backscatter was larger than
the clear-cut caused changes, which made the change detection
in forest very difficult. Such change could have been the result
of decreased direct scattering from the canopy and the ground
surface. The average backscatter coefficient varied around 2
dB between unfrozen and frozen conditions thus having
relatively small dynamic range. Nevertheless, during frozen
conditions, backscatter dropped 1.5 dB while the temperature
changed from -3 C to -6 C and less.
Thicker snow cover did not seem to affect the
backscattering results. Compared to the snow-free image taken
in November, the backscatter measurements dropped 1 dB for
images with unfrozen conditions but with a thin snow cover.
2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)
Changes in backscatter between dense and sparse forest can
cause problems for logging detection [1] as backscatter is
constantly 2-3 dB lower for sparse forest and can easily be
affected by the changing environmental conditions and ground
moisture content.
To reduce the effect of fluctuation of mean 0, a second
experiment was carried out, where two images were chosen for
the final analysis. Images from 23 Nov 2014 and 23 March
2015 were used as the image backscatter between these images
changed less than 0.2 dB (Fig. 3). The set of data consisted of
32 clear-cuts carried out in the period from 23 November 2014
to 23 March 2015. The logged stand sizes varied from 0.11-
4.17 ha.
For 56% of the stands, the average backscatter drop was 2
dB or more. For 22% of the stands, the average backscatter
drop was 3 dB (Fig. 6). It was also found that the backscatter
drop was dependent on the stand size and for stands 0.7 ha and
bigger (21 stands), the backscatter coefficient dropped more
than 2 dB for 81% of the clear-cut stands. The average drop in
backscattering coefficient was also strongly related to the size
of the area as the average 0 dropped more when the stand size
was increased. E.g. for 2 ha stands, 0 dropped 2.8 dB, for 1-2
ha stands the average drop was 2.2 dB and for 0.5-1 ha stands
the drop was 2.1 dB. For stands smaller than 0.5 ha 0
decreased on average 1.6 dB. For reference forests the decrease
in 0 was on average less than 1 dB (Fig. 7).
Thinning detection (Fig. 8) was done on 38 stands and
during the same period as the clear-cuts. The stand size varied
from 0.36-6.44 ha. Over all the stands that received thinning
treatment, on 71% of the areas 0 dropped over 1 dB, for 42%
of the stands over 1.5 dB and only for 17% of the stands the
average drop in the backscatter was more than 2 dB. For
logged stands, there was a clear relationship between the drop
in 0 and increasing stand size, whereas for thinning detection
an opposite behavior was observed. Forest stands that were
larger than 1.4 ha (17 stands) resulted in less than 1 dB drop in
0 for 65% of the stands after the thinning treatment. For 0.5
ha stands 0 dropped 1.4 dB, for 0.5-1 ha stands the average
drop was 1.5 dB and for 1-2 ha stands 0 decreased 1.3 dB. For
larger than 2 ha stands, thinning resulted on average 1.0 dB
drop.
Fig. 6. Sentinel-1 HV-polarized backscatter measurements before and
after clear-cut.
525

Fig.7. Sentinel-1 HV-polarized backscatter measurements for reference
forest.
Fig.8. Sentinel-1 HV-polarized backscatter measurements before and
after thinning.
While C-band Sentinel-1 images gave good results for
detecting logging of 1 ha and larger forest stands, the L-band
ALOS-2 satellite with higher spatial resolution (Fig. 9) is
more suitable for detecting thinning, selective logging and
logging of areas smaller than 1 ha.
Fig.9. Upper row, Sentinel-1 images before (11/11/14) and after
(27/02/15) clear-cut, below ALOS-2 images before (20/09/14) and after
(7/02/15) clear-cut of Aedu test area (3.66 ha), logged in December
2014.
526 2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)
Logging detection accuracy depends on the size of the
stand, wavelength, spatial resolution, tree density and the
weather conditions (temperature, snow cover, precipitation).
The best results are achieved by comparing and averaging SAR
images taken under similar environmental conditions. The
observed difference in C-band compared to L-band is more
related to backscatter from smaller objects such as small
branches and leaves that remained on the forest floor after the
clear-cut. The increased volume scattering resulted in higher
backscatter and made it difficult to detect smaller disturbances.
Development of an automatic change detection algorithm is in
progress including implementing multi-temporal filtering and
setting the logging detection up as a continuous and operational
service.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been funded by the Government of Estonia
through an ESA Contract under the PECS (Plan for European
Cooperating States) programme. This research has been
undertaken with the support of European Social Funds
Doctoral Studies and Internationalisation Programme DoRa,
carried out by Foundation Archimedes. The authors would also
like to acknowledge Regio Ltd. and Tartu Observatory. The
forest stand boundary shape file was provided by the Estonian
Environment Information Centre. The authors would like to
thank ESA for providing Sentinel-1 imagery (Figures 3, 4, 6, 7,
8, 9 contain Copernicus Data 2014/2015) and JAXA for the
ALOS-2 imagery used in the study under science proposal
13/JAXA/SIPM No.0509001 (PI No. 1454).
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