TY - JOUR
T1 - Multipolarization microwave scattering model for sahelian grassland
AU - Monsivais-Huertero, Alejandro
AU - Sarabandi, Kamal
AU - Chênerie, Isabelle
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received October 1, 2008; revised February 5, 2009, May 13, 2009, and July 27, 2009. First published November 17, 2009; current version published February 24, 2010. The work of A. Monsivais-Huertero was supported by the Mexican Council of Science and Technology.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - A coherent scattering formulation is developed for radar remote sensing of Sahelian grassland. This African vegetation is mainly composed of annual grass and shrubs. In the proposed procedure, first, a temporal model for generation of grass and shrub structures, which includes important realistic botanical information, is implemented. Because we develop a coherent scattering model, preserving the relative position of plant elements in a statistical manner as accurately as possible is very important. Shrubs are reproduced using cylindrical elements which represent trunks, branches, and thin green stems that function as leaves for these shrubs. Their crown shape is highly irregular, but for the most part can be encompassed in an ellipsoidal or cylindrical volume; on the other hand, the grass is represented as a set of cylindrical stalks and blade leaves. The scattered power from each grass element is added because multiple scattering among adjacent elements can be neglected at microwave frequencies. We calculate the soil scattering using the Integral Equation Method and neglect the soil volume scattering which may become significant for dry soil condition at high incidence angles. Backscatter statistics are acquired via a Monte Carlo simulation over a large number of realizations. The accuracy of the model is verified using measured data acquired by the C-band environmental satellite advanced synthetic aperture radar instrument at different incident angles.
AB - A coherent scattering formulation is developed for radar remote sensing of Sahelian grassland. This African vegetation is mainly composed of annual grass and shrubs. In the proposed procedure, first, a temporal model for generation of grass and shrub structures, which includes important realistic botanical information, is implemented. Because we develop a coherent scattering model, preserving the relative position of plant elements in a statistical manner as accurately as possible is very important. Shrubs are reproduced using cylindrical elements which represent trunks, branches, and thin green stems that function as leaves for these shrubs. Their crown shape is highly irregular, but for the most part can be encompassed in an ellipsoidal or cylindrical volume; on the other hand, the grass is represented as a set of cylindrical stalks and blade leaves. The scattered power from each grass element is added because multiple scattering among adjacent elements can be neglected at microwave frequencies. We calculate the soil scattering using the Integral Equation Method and neglect the soil volume scattering which may become significant for dry soil condition at high incidence angles. Backscatter statistics are acquired via a Monte Carlo simulation over a large number of realizations. The accuracy of the model is verified using measured data acquired by the C-band environmental satellite advanced synthetic aperture radar instrument at different incident angles.
KW - Radar remote sensing
KW - Sahelian grassland
KW - Vegetation scattering model
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84865135543&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TGRS.2009.2032173
DO - 10.1109/TGRS.2009.2032173
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0196-2892
VL - 48
SP - 1416
EP - 1432
JO - IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
JF - IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
IS - 3 PART2
M1 - 2032173
ER -