BIOMASS L2 Forest Disturbance

BIOMASS L2 Forest Disturbance is a P-band SAR-derived change detection product from the ESA BIOMASS mission, launched 29 April 2025.^[1] It is produced as two distinct sub-products: FP_FD__L2A, a stack-based per-cycle detection layer, and FP_FD__L2B, a tile-based global composite.^[2][3] Both carry a nominal spatial resolution of 50 m, which is the Forest Disturbance specification; the companion Above-Ground Biomass and Forest Height products operate at a coarser 200 m resolution.^[2] Access is currently restricted to the BIOMASS commissioning team; L2A FD open release is scheduled for April 2027, L2B FD for December 2027.^[4]

P-band SAR (435 MHz) penetrates dense tropical forest canopy where C-band SAR saturates, enabling forest structural loss detection in persistently cloud-covered equatorial regions inaccessible to optical sensors.^[5] The product supports deforestation monitoring for REDD+ and carbon-credit verification workflows at sub-hectare resolution, and provides global change-frequency mapping across the tropical-boreal belt.^[1]

North America and Europe are excluded from P-band acquisition due to coordination requirements with the US Space Object Tracking Radar network.^[5] The approximately 5-month global revisit is insufficient for near-real-time alert applications; the product is oriented toward medium-cadence structural change quantification rather than daily alerting. Interferometric processing requires consistent baseline geometry; orbit anomalies may degrade per-cycle detection performance.^[1] File format for FD-specific products is not specified in publicly available ESA product catalogs as of May 2026; NetCDF and GeoTIFF are used for other BIOMASS product types.^[2]