Backscattering characteristics of persistent scatterers extracted from PALSAR data

The main objective of this research is to clarify backscattering characteristics of Persistent Scatterers (PS) used in Persistent Scatterer SAR Interferometry (PSInSAR) technique. In this study, we conducted both InSAR and In-situ observation analyses. Our test site is set to a campus area of College of Engineering, Nihon University, JAPAN, because we have already acquired variety of data on this site such as a series of SAR data as well as Lidar data. As for InSAR process, 28 scenes of ALOS/PALSAR images are used for detection of PS over a period of time. A threshold for dispersion index is determined with respect to the relationship between amplitude and phase dispersions. The threshold is the maximum value in a range which both phase dispersion and amplitude dispersion take close value. Model-based decomposition is also applied in order to clarify backscattering characteristics of PS. It decomposes backscattering of PS into three scattering mechanisms, surface scattering, double-bounce scattering, volume scattering. Furthermore, it reveals which component is dominant in PS backscattering.