Exploitation of ALOS-PALSAR SAR full-polarimetry data to the mapping of an African region

Due to their large scale of observation and their relatively high revisiting frequency, spaceborne SAR systems offer interesting possibilities for the systematic monitoring of land cover. Several techniques have been developed to analyze land cover areas from single-polarization spaceborne SAR data, based on the statistical properties of the reflectivity of such complex media and its spatial variations (texture). The reduced resolution of the data, compared to the airborne SAR case, is a particularly limiting factor. Polarization diversity offers an interesting and powerful alternative mean to characterize land cover areas. In this paper, we propose to use polarimetric SAR acquired by the ALOS sensor at L band, to monitor land cover of an African region.