Agricultural crop condition monitoring using airborne C-band synthetic aperture radar in southern Alberta

Abstract Applications of airborne C-band synthetic aperture radar imagery for determining variations in agricultural crop characteristics were investigated at a test site in southern Alberta, Canada. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and ground-based crop characteristics data were acquired on 19–20 July 1994 for wheat, canola, beans, peas, and wheat + alfalfa cultivated under a variety of irrigation conditions. The results indicate that the statistically significant relationships that were derived between the ground-based data and SAR imagery are a function of crop type, crop condition parameter, and image processing procedures, and that crop characteristics such as leaf area index and plant height are negatively correlated with radar backscatter.

[1]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Microwave radar response to canopy moisture, leaf-area index, and dry weight of wheat, corn, and sorghum☆ , 1981 .

[2]  L. Prévot,et al.  Estimating the characteristics of vegetation canopies with airborne radar measurements , 1993 .

[3]  G. Edwards,et al.  SAR Applications in Agriculture: Multiband Correlation and Segmentation , 1990 .

[4]  Reza Zoughi,et al.  Sources of Scattering from Vegetation Canopies at 10 GHz , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[5]  R. J. Brown,et al.  Quantitative soil moisture extraction from airborne SAR data. , 1990 .

[6]  R. Reyment,et al.  Statistics and Data Analysis in Geology. , 1988 .

[7]  Drought stress evaluation in agricultural crops using C-HH SAR data. , 1990 .

[8]  R. J. Brown,et al.  Sar Image Classification of Agricultural Targets Using First- and Second-Order Statistics , 1987 .

[9]  Fawwaz Ulaby,et al.  Microwave Attenuation Properties of Vegetation Canopies , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[10]  Craig S. T. Daughtry,et al.  C-band backscattering from corn canopies , 1991 .

[11]  R. J. Brown,et al.  Correlations between X-, C-, and L-band imagery within an agricultural environment , 1992 .

[12]  Q.H.J. Gwyn,et al.  EFFETS DE LA GÉOMÉTRIE DE SURFACE DE CHAMPS DE MAIS SUR LA RÉTRODIFFUSION DU RADAR BANDE C , 1990 .

[13]  C. W. Lindwall,et al.  Tillage Effects on Radar Backscatter in Southern Alberta , 1993 .

[14]  H.W.J. van Kasteren,et al.  Ground-based X-band (3-cm wave) radar backscattering of agricultural crops. I. Sugar beet and potato; backscattering and crop growth , 1990 .

[15]  H.W.J. van Kasteren,et al.  Ground-based X-band (3-cm wave) radar backscattering of agricultural crops. II. Wheat, barley, and oats; the impact of canopy structure , 1990 .

[16]  Giles M. Foody,et al.  Crop classification from C-band polarimetric radar data , 1994 .

[17]  Fawwaz T. Ulaby,et al.  Relating the microwave backscattering coefficient to leaf area index , 1984 .