Comparison of Surface Roughness Parameters of Tidal Flat Estimated from AIRSAR and ALOS Observations

Tidal flats form a unique ecosystem, playing important roles in the environmental assessment of coastal zones. This study aims to derive surface characteristics of tidal flats from fully polarimetric SAR data sets. The microwave surface scattering models were employed to measure the surface roughness on tidal flats from air-borne and space-borne polarimetric SAR data, such as NASA/JPL AIRSAR and ALOS PALSAR. Surface roughness parameters were estimated from the circular polarization coherence and co-polarized scattering elements. Recent changes in costal wetlands will be continually monitored by using the PALSAR data sets together with other newly developed space-borne SAR systems, such as RADARSAT-2 and TerraSAR-X.