CLASSIFICATION AND MONITORING OF SALT MARSH HABITATS WITH MULTIPOLARIMETRIC AND MULTI-FREQUENCY SAR

摘要

Within GMES there is much interest in the ability ofrnremote sensing technology to deliver operationalrnsolutions to many areas of life including environmentalrnmanagement. This paper describes research focused onrnthe application for Earth Observation for IntegratedrnCoastal Zone Management. The main topic of thisrnresearch is to explore to which extent salt marsh habitatsrnfrom can be identified from SAR remotely sensed data.rnMulti-frequency, multi-polarimetric SAR images fromrnairborne (S- and X-Band quad-polarimetric from thernAstrium airborne SAR Demonstrator) is used tornexamine salt marsh habitat classification potential in thernLlanrhidian salt marshes in South Wales, UK. This isrnachieved by characterizing their botanical and structuralrncomposition, flooding regimes as well as fluctuations inrnsoil moisture. Different SAR features as backscatterrncoefficient, band ratios and polarimetric decompositionrnare extracted.