Potential of ERS and Radarsat data for surface roughness monitoring over bare agricultural fields: Application to catchments in Northern France

The potential of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data for monitoring roughness states over bare agricultural fields has been investigated using one ERS image (23°) and two Radarsat images (39° and 47°). The relationships between the backscattering coefficient, incidence angle, soil surface roughness and row direction have been examined so as to determine the best SAR configuration for such monitoring. The results indicate a strong dependence of incidence angle on the discrimination between radar return over areas of different surface roughness. At a high incidence angle (47°), the influence of soil roughness on radar return predominates over the influence of other soil parameters, making it possible to discriminate and map various surface roughness classes (smooth, medium and rough) over agricultural fields.

[1]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Microwave Backscatter Dependence on Surface Roughness, Soil Moisture, and Soil Texture: Part I-Bare Soil , 1978, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience Electronics.

[2]  J. V. Mannering,et al.  Influence of Surface Roughness and Clod Size and Stability on Soil and Water Losses 1 , 1979 .

[3]  James R. Wang,et al.  Multifrequency Measurements of the Effects of Soil Moisture, Soil Texture, And Surface Roughness , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[4]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Active Microwave Soil Moisture Research , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[5]  C. A. Onstad,et al.  Tillage and rainfall effects on random roughness: A review , 1987 .

[6]  François Papy,et al.  Influence des systèmes de culture sur les risques d'érosion par ruissellement concentré. I. — Analyse des conditions de déclenchement de l'érosion , 1988 .

[7]  G. Rauws,et al.  Hydraulic and soil mechanical aspects of rill generation on agricultural soils , 1988 .

[8]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  Theoretical study of the sensitivity of the microwave backscattering coefficient to the soil surface parameters , 1989 .

[9]  A. Beaudoin,et al.  SAR observations and modeling of the C-band backscatter variability due to multiscale geometry and soil moisture , 1990 .

[10]  Y. Bissonnais.  Experimental study and modelling of soil surface crusting processes. , 1990 .

[11]  C. Gascuel-Odoux,et al.  Mapping saturated areas with a helicopter-borne C band scatterometer , 1990 .

[12]  R. J. Brown,et al.  Tillage effects on the radar backscattering coefficient of grain stubble fields , 1991 .

[13]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  The use of a microwave backscatter model for retrieving soil moisture over bare soil , 1992 .

[14]  Kamal Sarabandi,et al.  An empirical model and an inversion technique for radar scattering from bare soil surfaces , 1992, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[15]  A. Fung.  Microwave Scattering and Emission Models and their Applications , 1994 .

[16]  D. Michelson,et al.  ERS-I SAR backscattering coefficients from bare fields with different tillage row directions , 1994 .

[17]  Nathalie Beaulieu,et al.  DÉTERMINATION de la RUGOSITÉ de Surface Par des MÉTHODES Accessibles , 1995 .

[18]  B. Ludwig,et al.  Hydrological structure and erosion damage caused by concentrated flow in cultivated catchments , 1995 .

[19]  I. Champion.  Simple modelling of radar backscattering coefficient over a bare soil: variation with incidence angle, frequency and polarization , 1996 .

[20]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  Radar backscattering over agricultural bare soils , 1996 .

[21]  R. J. Brown,et al.  Potential of Synthetic Aperture Radar for Large-Scale Soil Moisture Monitoring: A Review , 1996 .

[22]  Y. Le Bissonnais,et al.  Crusting, runoff and sheet erosion on silty loamy soils at various scales and upscaling from m2 to small catchments , 1998 .

[23]  M. S. Moran,et al.  Relation between ERS‐1 synthetic aperture radar data and measurements of surface roughness and moisture content of rocky soils in a semiarid rangeland , 1998 .

[24]  SAR imagery to estimate roughness parameters when modelling runoff risk , 1999 .