Comparison of Backscattering Models at C-Band for Corn Fields

The monitoring of agricultural areas is challenging because the fast phenological changes. Satellite sensors are a powerful tool to monitor agricultural lands because of their capacity of cover large areas. Microwave satellite observations, particularly those acquired at frequencies < 10 GHz, are sensitive enough to capture changes in vegetation. The ESA Sentinel-1 mission, operating at C-band, has shown its ability to monitor agricultural areas because of its revisit time. In order to understand satellite C-band backscatter observations, there is still a need of insights about the selection of the modeling approach that accounts for the different effects involved in the backscatter from a scene. This study presents the comparison of two scattering models, the Water Cloud Model and a Coherent Scattering Model, over corn fields to understand the backscatter signal.