Growth monitoring and classification of rice fields using multitemporal RADARSAT-2 full-polarimetric data |
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Authors: | Chinatsu Yonezawa Masahiro Negishi Kenta Azuma Manabu Watanabe Naoki Ishitsuka Shigeo Ogawa |
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Affiliation: | 1. Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University , Sendai , Miyagi , 981-8555 , Japan chinatsu@bios.tohoku.ac.jp;3. ImageONE Co., Ltd. , Shinjuku , Tokyo , 163-0712 , Japan;4. Earth Observation Research Centre, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency , Tsukuba , Ibaraki , 305-8505 , Japan;5. National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences , Tsukuba , Ibaraki , 305-8604 , Japan;6. National Institute for Rural Engineering, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization , Tsukuba , Ibaraki , 305-8609 , Japan |
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Abstract: | Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can be used for agricultural monitoring. In this study, three single-polarimetric and four full-polarimetric observation data sets were analysed. A rice paddy field in northern Japan was used as the study site; the data for this site were obtained using RADARSAT-2, which carries a full-polarimetric C-band SAR. Soybean and grass fields were also present within the paddy fields. The temporal change in the backscattering coefficient of the rice paddy fields for the single-polarization data agreed with the temporal change obtained for a rice growth model based on radiative transfer theory. A three-component decomposition approach was applied to the full-polarimetric data. With each rice growth stage, the volume scattering component ratio increased, whereas the surface scattering component ratio generally decreased. The soybean and grass fields showed a smaller double-bounce scattering component than the rice fields for all the acquired data. The results of this study show that multitemporal observation by full-polarimetric SAR has great potential to be utilized for estimating rice-planted areas and monitoring rice growth. |
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