Urban boundary extraction using 2-component polarimetric SAR decomposition

The world is continuing to urbanize at an alarming rate. The ability to detect, map and monitor change within the urban system is of critical importance as urban growth happens largely at the expense of agricultural loss. Mapping land use/land cover change within urban systems using fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar has been limited because of the complexity of scattering mechanisms within the urban system. This research examines the use of 2-component polarimetric decompositions for the identification of the urban-rural boundary. Using multi-temporal, fully polarimetric RADARSAT2 fine beam SAR imagery the Neumann 2-Component decomposition was most effective of the four decompositions tested.