Omparative Analysis of the Relative Polarimetric Radar Signature of Vegetation and Cities Districts

Confusion between the polarimetric radar signatures of rotated buildings and vegetation has been widely studied to compensate for the effect of rotation. We propose in this study to have a new look on this problem. To do this, we have selected different areas in the San Francisco bay and in New Orleans. These selected zones present different orientations with respect to the sensor illuminating the scene, RADARSAT-2 (C-band) for San Francisco or UAVSAR (L-band) for New Orleans. The variations with the orientation angle of the VV/HH and HV/HH responses collected over these areas are almost identical whatever the sensor. These two quantities first grow and rapidly reach a plateau, at a level which is similar to the responses of forests we collected throughout literature. Actually, it seems that, when the rotation angles grows, the polarimetric radar responses of urban areas tend to limit values which are similar to the radar responses of forests.