Application of Cloude's target decomposition theorem to polarimetric imaging radar data

In this paper we applied Cloude's decomposition to imaging radar polarimetry. We show in detail how the decomposition results can guide the interpretation of scattering from vegetated areas. For multi-frequency polarimetric radar measurements of a clearcut area, the decomposition leads us to conclude that the vegetation is probably thin compared to even the C-band radar wavelength of 6 cm . For a forested area, we notice an increased amount of even number of reflection scattering at P-band and L-band, probably the result of penetration through the coniferous canopy resulting in trunk-ground double reflection scattering. The scattering for the forested area is still dominated by scattering from randomly oriented cylinders, however. It is found that these cylinders are thicker than in the case of clearcut areas, leading us to conclude that scattering from the branches probably dominate in this case.