COMPARISON OF JERS-1 AND RADARSAT SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR DATA FOR MAPPING MANGROVE AND ITS BIOMASS Mazlan Hashim and Wan Hazli Wan Kadir Department of Remote Sensing Faculty of Geoinformation Science & Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia 81310 UTM, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia Tel: +607-5502873, Fax: +607-5566163, email: mazlan@fksg.utm.my Abstract This paper has reviewed comparison of classification of mangrove forest at species- level, and estimation of mangrove biomass using JERS-1 SAR and Radarsat SAR (standard mode) data. Both of these comparisons were made at selected test site in Sungai Pulai Mangrove Forest Reserve in Malaysia. The results demonstrated the utility of SAR data as potential source in mapping mangrove classes and indicator for biomass. Although there has been limited availability of exhaustive sampling points done accessibility at the test site, but the results indicated the evidence of C and L band utility for mangrove mapping and biomass estimation. 1. INTRODUCTION Mangrove forests grow exclusively in the intertidal zone, where they are greatly influenced by the coastal environment. Mangrove forests are becoming dwindling resources because of their continued alienation for various land uses that are assumed to be of greater economic values. In Malaysia alone mangrove forest area have decreased by 46.8 percent of the original gazetted area, i.e. from 505, 300 hectares in 1980 to 269, 000 hectares in 1990 (Clough, 1993). Due to its nature, especially, of its remoteness and limited accessibility, the detecting and mapping of these changes using conventional technique are elaborately time consuming and very costly. In this study, SAR data which is independent of to cloud cover and weather interference are examined for mapping mangrove and estimation of mangrove biomass. In recent years, SAR data have been used in classification of vegetation precisely forest over tropical regions. However, only limited studies have been reported on mapping mangrove forest (Mazlan Hashim, 1999) Moreover, none of these studies have ever been attempted to examine the potential of SAR to classify mangrove forest at species level. In this context, this paper is focused on two issues : (i) analyse whether or not mangrove species can be categorized using typical satellite-based SAR resolution, and (ii) retrieve of biomass information based on radar backscatter. Apart from vegetation studies using SAR data, estimation of forest biomass has widely been reported but again very little effort have been undertaken for mangrove (Imhof, 1995). Previous studies have indicated that there exist strong correlation between radar backscatter with forest biomass, particularly of those SAR data acquired in L and P bands (Beaudoin et al., 1994). Based on these facts, it is also the main objective of this paper to report on the estimation of mangrove biomass using JERS-1 SAR and Radarsat SAR which were acquired in C band and L band, respectively.