Time series of polarimetric and interferometric observations of TerraSAR-X data over rice fields in Spain

The objective of this work 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. Time series of dual-pol TerraSAR-X images have been acquired during the whole cultivation period over a rice site in Spain. 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. 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. Finally, interferograms computed with pairs of successive images (11 days separation) have been preliminary tested.