Radar backscatter of rice fields from ASAR data and modeling

Rice is one of the agricultural crops most suited to monitoring with the SAR instruments. Backscatter response measured by SAR is correlated with rice conditions, including height, density, biomass and structure, which are variable at different growing stages. In this paper, multi-date Envisat ASAR Alternating Polarization Mode (APMode) imageries were acquired during the rice crop growing cycle. At the same time, the rice parameters were measured in field. A continuous canopy model was used to compute the backscatter from rice fields during the growth cycle. The simulated backscattering coefficients were compared with the ASAR image data, and the relationship of rice parameters and radar backscattering coefficients from both ASAR and modeling were analyzed. It was found that simulated radar backscatter has similar trends as ASAR data, and that the HV polarization data is more suitable for rice parameters estimation. This will be meaningful for the further research of rice parameters estimation from ASAR data