Retriveval of soll moisture under vegetation using Polarimetric Scattering Cubes

Soil moisture inversion from polarimetric SAR data has attracted significant attention for the past twenty years. Comparing with the simple case of bare surface, it is extremely complicated for vegetated terrain to invert soil moisture because of a larger number of scattering mechanisms that contributes to the observation. In this paper, we show how polarimetric decomposition technique, which decomposes SAR observations into preferred scattering mechanisms, can be used for the inversion. The result leads us to give up the use of polarimetric decomposition because of an unknown attenuation ratio caused by the canopy. Then a new inversion algorithm using Polarimetric Scattering Cubes (PSC) is introduced with simulation results to show a sensitivity to physical parameter such as vegetation distribution. Finally, we also discuss how the technique should be implemented for the real SAR data.