Paddy field extraction using beta and polarization orientation angles

Paddy field extraction is a prerequisite to precision agriculture and to the monitoring of the rice condition. Many studies have been carried out for improving the mapping accuracy and retrieving the biophysical parameter, but most of these studies used the scattering characteristics of the rice crop, and little attention has been given to the topographic information provided by the single polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data. To address this issue, this paper presents a paddy field extraction method using beta and polarization orientation angles (POAs). The beta angle is the tilt-angle measurement of target and the POA defines the angle between the normal ground surface and the incident plane. Thus, these two topographic parameters could be used to extract the paddy field. The experiment results using C-band Radarsat-2 data demonstrated that the proposed method is very simple and can be easily and efficiently used for the aforementioned purpose, but further studies are required for assessing its applicability.