An investigation of different polarimetric decomposition techniques for soil moisture estimation

Soil moisture estimation is an important issue in several environmental applications. For such a purpose the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a fundamental tool since it ensures both a wide coverage and a fine spatial resolution on the catchment scale. The main issue is to filter out soil roughness from moisture and to discriminate the vegetation scattering signatures from the ground ones. SAR polarimetry can be successfully exploited in order to effectively address these issues. In this study, the performances of three polarimetric decomposition techniques for the estimation of soil moisture is analyzed against actual Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) polarimetric L- and C- band SAR data, acquired during the Soil Moisture Experiments 2003 (SMEX03). The corresponding soil moisture estimates are compared with ground measurements.