Sensitivity of Main Polarimetric Parameters of Multifrequency Polarimetric SAR Data to Soil Moisture and Surface Roughness Over Bare Agricultural Soils

The potential of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data for the soil surface characterization of bare agricultural soils was investigated by using air- and spaceborne data acquired by Radar Aéroporté Multi-Spectral d'Etude des Signatures (RAMSES), Système Expérimental de Télédétection Hyperfréquence Imageur (SETHI), and RADARSAT-2 sensors over several study sites in France. Fully polarimetric data at ultrahigh frequency, X-, C-, L-, and P-bands were compared. The results show that the main polarimetric parameters studied (entropy, α angle, and anisotropy) are not very sensitive to the variation of the soil surface parameters. Low correlations are observed between the polarimetric and soil parameters (moisture content and surface roughness). Thus, the polarimetric parameters are not very relevant to the characterization of the soil surface over bare agricultural areas.