Multiband SAR data for rangeland pasture monitoring

Rangelands in Australia cover approximately 80 percent of the continent and include a diverse group of relatively undisturbed ecosystems such as tropical savannas, woodlands, shrublands and grasslands. It is important to monitor and understand change in the rangelands so that effective actions can be taken to maintain ecological, economic and social values in Australia. Efficient use of feed resources in the livestock industries of Australia is a major factor in determining farm profitability and sustainability. With limited information, many producers forego potential production because of ineffective management of their feed resources. Further, poor management can also lead to environmental degradation. Therefore, CSIRO have invested to investigate, develop and validate new methodologies for integration of remote sensing data with in-situ field measurements, in order to map the dynamics in aboveground plant biomass in forests, crops, grassland and rangelands of Australia. Pasture biomass mapping is a main component of this project given rangelands the majority of Australia. Due to good sensitive to diverse rangelands in tropical and subtropical regions, multi-band SAR data for pasture mapping are investigated in this paper.