ON POTENTIAL ESTIMATION OF PERMAFROST-VEGETATION IN ARCTIC AREA

Knowledge of the spatial distribution of permafrost-vegetation interface in the Arctic is important to climate change of this region. Vegetation is very limited in Arctic environments. Optical remote sensing data are currently used to identify permafrost-vegetation interface. This provide interesting information on Earth surface but are limited to cloud-free periods. For these reasons it is not possible an exhaustive monitoring of permafrost-vegetation interface in these areas with optical data. For this purpose, spaceborne fully polarimetric and time-series datasets show great potential for mapping permafrost-vegetation interface with a sufficient level of precision. Our goal is to evaluate fully polarimetric RADARSAT-2 (RS2) time-series datasets to identify the permafrost-vegetation interface dynamics. To achieve this, the radar vegetation index (RVI) is evaluated on five areas of interest (AOI) chosen in the fjord Kongsfjorden, located in Svalbard Archipelago and individuate how: Sea, Ice, Blomstrandhalvøya Island, Coastal Area and Ossian Sars Nature Reserve.