Multi-incidence angle approach to understand fully polarimetric SAR data from coniferous forest

SAR polarimetry has been expected to be a potential candidate of a tool to measure physical parameters such as biomass and soil moisture. However, it still has some difficulties to even simply relate the parameters to a radar backscattering cross section. In this paper, a multi-incidence angle approach is applied to understand the radar backscatter from the vegetated field. We theoretically developed a boreal forest model based on Discrete scatterer model, and utilized it to simulate a backscatter in terms of incidence angles in some cases. Analyzing the simulation results, we revealed that a trunk in the boreal forest works as a radio wave absorber. In addition, increase and decrease of the backscatter is strongly influenced by the dominant scattering mechanism as expected. This theoretical study will be validated by real data which will be obtained by real airborne and spaceborne SAR sensors.