Soil moisture was assessed with quad-polarimetric TerraSAR-X and dual-polarimetric (HH/VV) TanDEM-X data from the agricultural region of Wallerfing, Germany. The investigations included a bare soil case in April 2009 (TerraSAR-X) and a time series of 04-07/2011 (TanDEM-X) to estimate soil moisture on bare and vegetated soils including different agricultural crop types at various phenological stages. Therefore polarimetric decomposition methods, incorporating a synthetic cross-polarization, were developed for X-band to separate ground scattering from vegetation scattering. Afterwards the IEM model was used to invert the ground or bare soil scattering components using the dominant scattering alpha angle. For both campaigns, comprising several crop and soil types and different phenological stages along the growth cycle, a root mean square error of <6vol.% (bare soil/TerraSAR-X) and of 5-14vol.% (vegetated soil/TanDEM-X) can be achieved for the soil moisture estimation.
[1]
Shane R. Cloude,et al.
DUAL VERSUS QUADPOL: A NEW TEST STATISTIC FOR RADAR POLARIMETRY
,
2009
.
[2]
F. Ulaby,et al.
Microwave Dielectric Behavior of Wet Soil-Part II: Dielectric Mixing Models
,
1985,
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
[3]
Norman Wagner,et al.
Experimental Investigations on the Frequency- and Temperature-Dependent Dielectric Material Properties of Soil
,
2011,
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
[4]
Sophie Allain,et al.
Caractérisation d'un sol nu à partir de données SAR polarimétriques. Etude multi-fréquentielle et multi-résolutions
,
2003
.
[5]
Mehrez Zribi,et al.
Analysis of Local Variation of Soil Surface Parameters With TerraSAR-X Radar Data Over Bare Agricultural Fields
,
2010,
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.