SAR Remote Sensing Data for Subsurface Targets Detection and Lop Nur Lake Evolution and Extinction Study

This paper presents the observation from SAR images of the dried Lop Nur Lake in Xinjiang of west China. Lop Nur Lake is one of the driest places in the world and finally lost its last drop of water in 1972. It is well known for its "human ear shape" feature in optical remote sensing images. Likewise, the "ear" feature is shown in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, and is even larger because of the penetration effect. The universal existence of lacustrine deposit with high water content and salinity are undetectable by previous remote sensing images in Lop Nur Lake. We have made some laboratory experiments about subsurface soils and developed an improved dielectric model for moist saline soil at microwave bands. A field trip was conducted from October 25 to November 8, 2006 to validate the image interpretation results. As an important indicator for environment degradation and climate change study in arid region, Lop Nur does need long-term and overall research to answer many scientific questions.