A Combined Use of Decomposition and Empirical Model for Soil Moisture Estimation in Vegetated Areas from polarimetric SAR Data

Inhalt:
One of the most important functions of radar remote sensing is to retrieve the soil moisture and surface roughness. In our paper the soil moisture estimation in vegetated areas from polarimetric SAR data is performed by using the empirical model developed by Dubois et al. in 1995 and a three-component scattering model developed by Freeman and Durden. Vegetation value at each pixel is estimated by the help of two quantities: sigma0HV / sigma0VV ratio and RVI (radar vegetation index) value. SIR-C/X-SAR SLC C- and L-band fully polarimetric SAR data of Moscow region acquired in 1994/10/09 are used for illustration.