Determination of scattering mechanisms inside rice plants by means of PCT and high resolution radar imaging

3-D high-resolution radar images have been produced for a mature rice crop sample by using wide-band fully polari-metric data collected at the EMSL, JRC-Ispra (Italy). These images have been compared with the 1D vertical density profiles produced by the Polarization Coherence Tomography technique on the same rice sample. In order to obtain a 1D vertical reflectivity profile from the 3D SAR images, several slices at certain ground-range positions have been selected and then all the horizontal cross-range contributions have been summed up. As expected, very similar qualitative results are obtained when comparing these profiles with the PCT ones. The ground exhibits the highest response for all three polarization channels up to C-band, and also for the HH channel at X-band. In addition, at X-band the VV channel decreases significantly at ground level but the HV channel remains high. Finally, an important contribution from the upper layers is observed at C-band and more notably at X-band for all three polarization channels.