Sharpened mapping of tropical forest biophysical properties from coarse spatial resolution satellite sensor data

Forest biophysical properties are typically estimated and mapped from remotely sensed data through the application of a vegetation index. This generally does not make full use of the information content of the remotely sensed data, using only the data acquired in a limited number of spectral channels, and may provide a relatively crude spatial representation of the biophysical variable of interest. Using imagery acquired by the NOAH AVHRR, it is shown that a standard neural network may use all the spectral channels available in a remotely sensed data set to derive more accurate estimates of the biophysical properties of tropical forests in Ghana than a series of vegetation indices. Additionally, the spatial representation derived can be refined by fusion with finer spatial resolution imagery, achieved with the application of a further neural network.