Polarimetric scattering coefficients of a stratified medium

Progress in polarimetric radar technology as well in polarimetric remote sensing give new tools for natural media classification and estimation of biophysical and geophysical parameters. In general, natural media are inhomogeneous and often stratified into multiple layers. Soil moisture remote sensing is an example of such a field of investigation. Other stratified media include ice-covered water, snow-covered ice, asphalt-covered soil, concrete-covered soil, oil on an unperturbed water surface, etc. In this paper the polarimetric scattering coefficients of multi-layer natural media are presented. Both backscattering and bistatic scattering modes are studied. The results can be used for normalization of complex target cross-sections as well as for normalization of rough surface scattering data