First Results of Rice Monitoring Practices in Spain by Means of Time Series of TerraSAR-X Dual-Pol Images

Time series of dual-pol TerraSAR-X images have been acquired during the whole cultivation period over a rice site in Spain. The objective of this paper is to investigate the coherent co-polarized behavior of rice plants during the growing stages and to explore their information content for rice monitoring at high frequencies recently available through new SAR satellite missions. Among different observations, the backscattering coefficients at HH and VV channels and the HH/VV ratio have confirmed to show a temporal variation that has a significant correlation with the development of the plants during the vegetative and reproductive phenological phases. A physical interpretation in terms of the scattering mechanisms and extinction has been provided for this response. In addition, the information content of the HHVV complex coherence and a dual polarimetric target decomposition is investigated and discussed. All the information layers investigated are contributing to the discrimination of rice fields from other crop types. Apart of polarization, also the effect of high spatial resolution imaging for rice monitoring is of high interest for any kind of growth disturbances that may occur within one field for yield production.