Semi-empirical calibration of the integral equation model for co-polarized L-band backscattering

The objective of this paper is to extend the semi-empirical calibration of the backscattering Integral Equation Model (IEM) initially proposed for SAR data at C- and X-bands to SAR data at L band. A large dataset of radar signal and in situ measurements (soil moisture and surface roughness) over bare soil surfaces were used. A semi-empirical calibration of the IEM was performed at L band in replacing the correlation length derived from field experiments by a fitting parameter. Better agreement was observed between the backscattering coefficient provided by the SAR and that simulated by the calibrated version of the IEM.