EVALUATION OF VEGETATION EFFECT ON THE RETRIEVAL OF SNOW PARAMETERS FROM BACKSCATTERING MEASUREMENTS: A CONTRIBUTION TO CoReH2O MISSION

In preparation of the satellite mission CoReH2O, one of the three missions selected for scientific and technical feasibility studies within the Earth Explorer Programme of the European Space Agency, experimental and theoretical studies started in order to investigate backscatter properties of snow covered terrain and improve the methods for retrieval of snow physical properties from SAR data. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of vegetation in the retrieval of snow parameters from backscattering measurements. First a radiative transfer model, able to simulating scattering from a vegetated snow-covered terrain was developed and implemented. Lastly, a sensitivity analysis on snow and vegetation parameters was conducted for coniferous forest. Results confirm that with increasing biomass the sensitivity to SWE strongly decreases. Moreover when biomass is in the 0-150 m(3)/ha range a procedure to correct the vegetation effect in the SWE retrieval algorithm is suggested