Long-term C- and L-band SAR backscatter data for monitoring post-fire vegetation recovery in the tundra environment of the Anaktuvuk River, Alaska (Version 1.0) (2002-2017)

Long-term C- and L-band SAR backscatter data for monitoring post-fire vegetation recovery in the tundra environment of the Anaktuvuk River, Alaska (Version 1.0) (2002-2017)


Wildfires can strongly affect the frozen soil environment by burning surface vegetation and soil organic matter. Vegetation affected by fire can take many years to return to mature pre-fire levels. In this data set, the effects of fires on vegetation regrowth in a frozen-ground tundra environment in the Anaktuvuk River Basin on the North Slope of Alaska were studied by quantifying changes in C-band and L-band SAR backscatter data over 15 years (2002-2017). After the fire, the C- and L-band backscattering coefficients increased by 5.5 and 4.4 dB, respectively, in the severe fire area compared to the unburned area. Five years after the fire, the difference in C-band backscattering between the fire zone and the unburned zone decreased, indicating that the post-fire vegetation level had recovered to the level of the unburned zone. This long recovery time is longer than the 3-year recovery estimated from visible wavelength-based NDVI observations. In addition, after 10 years of vegetation recovery, the backscattering of the L-band in the severe fire zone remains approximately 2 dB higher than that of the unburned zone. This continued difference may be caused by an increase in surface roughness. Our analysis shows that long-term SAR backscattering data sets can quantify vegetation recovery after fire in an Arctic tundra environment and can also be used to supplement visible-wavelength observations.

The temporal coverage of the backscattering data is from 2002 to 2017, with a time resolution of one month, and the data cover the Anaktuvuk River area on the North Slope of Alaska. The spatial resolution is 30~100 m, the C- and L-band data are separated, and a GeoTIFF file is stored every month.

For details on the data, see SAR Backscattering Data of the Anaktuvuk River Basin on the North Slope of Alaska - Data Description.


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Cite as:

Jiang, L. (2018). Long-term C- and L-band SAR backscatter data for monitoring post-fire vegetation recovery in the tundra environment of the Anaktuvuk River, Alaska (Version 1.0) (2002-2017). A Big Earth Data Platform for Three Poles, DOI: 10.11888/Ecolo.tpdc.270980. CSTR: 18406.11.Ecolo.tpdc.270980. (Download the reference: RIS | Bibtex )

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Support Program

CASEarth:Big Earth Data for Three Poles(grant No. XDA19070000) (No:XDA19000000)

the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No:XDA19070104) [XDA19070104]

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License: This work is licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)


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Keywords
Geographic coverage
East: -150.20 West: -150.80
South: 68.80 North: 69.70
Details
  • File size: 62,000 MB
  • Views: 4960
  • Downloads: 11
  • Access: Open Access
  • Temporal coverage: 2002-01-11 To 2018-01-10
  • Updated time: 2021-04-19
Contacts
: JIANG Liming  

Distributor: A Big Earth Data Platform for Three Poles

Email: poles@itpcas.ac.cn

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