Modeling and Interpretation of the Multitemporal and Multibaseline Polinsar Coherence

This paper focuses on the physical understanding of the polarimetric interferometric SAR (PolInSAR) coherence, and on the accurate utilization of this coherence for vegetation parameter inversion. A polarimetric interferometric vegetation model presented here provides the possibility to estimate parameters related to ground topography, vegetation, and surface scattering. In particular, one can estimate such vegetation characteristics as the main orientation, the degree of orientation randomness and the effective shape of the particles, together with structural parameters like the ground height and the depths of vegetation layers. The polarimetric model is based on the Freeman´s three component decomposition, which is extended to consider vegetation orientation. To enhance polarimetry, a complimentary interferometric coherence model is presented. The model and the parameter inversion method are tested on accurate electromagnetic simulations of real forests. Parameter inversion performance is evaluated for single-baseline and multibaseline data.