Comparing SAR at Multiple Frequencies with Optical Vegetation Indices for an Area in Vietnam

Abstract:
Utilizing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for vegetation monitoring offers advantages over optical sensors due to its ability to penetrate clouds. Despite this, many users and applications still rely on optical-derived vegetation indices (VIs). Combining both modalities and deriving VIs from SAR data is a way to bring the advantages of SAR to these users. To support this translation we analyze the relationship between different VIs with L-, S-, C-, and X-band SAR data over an area in southern Vietnam. Our analysis shows, that there is a relationship between VIs and SAR data, especially for Cand L-band data.