Impact of interception on the thematic analyses of SAR data in agricultural areas

The objective of this study is to analyse and interpret the impact of intercepted rainfall on the thematic analyses of SAR data acquired in agricultural areas. The investigations were carried out using airborne E-SAR data at X-, C- and L-band. Furthermore, TerraSAR simulated data were analysed with respect to future spaceborne missions. The strongest effect of plant surface wetness on crop recognition was found at C-band. Single classes showed changes in user´s or producer´s accuracy up to 30%. For classifications based on X-and L-band data - the future TerraSAR configuration - better classification results were achieved when free vegetation water was present. Thus, the matutinal overflight time of TerraSAR over Germany can be considered as an advantage for crop mapping issues.