Inversion of soil moisture content from L- and P-band AIRSAR polarimetric SAR data

Improvements of polarimetric inversion algorithms is presented in this paper. The confounding influence of roughness and vegetation cover on the estimation of the soil moisture contents is considered in the inversion algorithm that estimates volumetric moisture contents and roughness parameters simultaneously from the pertinent combination of polarization measurements. The estimation of the soil moisture contents from polarimetric SAR data is investigated using L- and P-band AIRSAR polarimetric SAR data collected over the Jeju Island, Korea. Results indicate that the estimation of the soil moisture contents can be expanded to a wider range of terrain types by using both L- and P-band polarimetric SAR data.