Influence of the soil tillage and degradation due to rain upon the radar scattered signal

The study presented here is deals with the effect of bare soils roughness (including soil tillage and state of degradation due to rain fall) upon microwave scattering. Many theoretical as well as experimental studies have already been completed to point out the influence of soil roughness on backscattering. Nevertheless, the interpretation of radar measurements in terms of soil roughness still remains a difficult task given the geometrical complexity of real soils and the influence of soil moisture. Electromagnetic simulations of the radar signal are an essential step to understand the influence of such parameters on the back-scattered signal. For the purpose of this paper, a data base of real bare soil geometrical descriptions retrieved by using a stereovision method is used and the back-scattered signal is obtained for each kind of soil by a rigorous differential electromagnetic method.