POTENTIAL OF C-BAND HYBRID POLARIMETRIC RISAT-1 SAR DATA FOR WHEAT CROP HEIGHT ESTIMATION

Abstract. The advancement of hybrid polarimetry and the launch of Radar Imaging SATellite-1 (RISAT-1), the first Earth observing satellite with capability to acquire hybrid polarimetric SAR data, have given opportunity to explore the potentials of this data for various geo-spatial applications. Among these, crop growth monitoring and soil moisture estimation is one of the important application for proper irrigation management, yield forecasting and crop insurance systems. The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the sensitivity of RISAT-1 hybrid polarimetric SAR data for wheat height. However, backscattering coefficients have shown less sensitive towards wheat height, polarimetric parameters such as Stokes parameters and scattering decomposition parameters have shown higher sensitivity. The analysis observed the highest correlation coefficient (|r|) and lowest RMSE (in m) for g₃ with 0.61 and 0.18 respectively followed by odd bounce with 0.59 and 0.2 respectively.