Tidal flats form a unique ecosystem, providing the habitat for various species of fauna and flora which play an important role in the essential function of water purification. Tidal flats have particular significance for coastal zone environmental assessment. This study aims to derive physical properties and surface characteristics of tidal flats from L-band NASA/JPL fully polarimetric AIRSAR data which was acquired over Southern coast of Korean peninsula in September, 2000, as part of the PACRIM-Ⅱ mission. Surface roughness is an essential parameter prescribed by surface sand ripples in tidal flat. We employed the Extended-Bragg (X-Bragg) model to measure the surface roughness on tidal flats from polarimetric SAR data. There are two approaches of X-Bragg model, which are circular polarization roughness and Anisotropy methods. The circular polarization coherence RRLL ρ was developed to investigate terrain surface roughness. Anisotropy method was developed to separate the surface roughness from surface dielectric constant by utilizing the scattering entropy H, the anisotropy A and the alpha angle The surface roughness was calculated and analyzed using the polarimetric anisotropy and the circular polarization coherence, RRLL ρ . I. INTRODUCTION ρ and the related polarimetric decomposition parameter, the anisotropy, was performed. In this study, the surface roughness parameters were estimated using these two methods which are based on the relation with circular polarization coherence and surface roughness. Four study sites in the intertidal study area in the Southern coast of Korean peninsula were selected for this study. The SAR data analyzed in this paper is multi-look images (MLC), acquired by the fully polarized NASA/JPL Airborne SAR (AIRSAR) survey during the PACRIM-Ⅱ campaign.
['Ji-Eun Kim', 'Sang-Eun Park', 'Duk-jin Kim', 'Wooil M. Moon']
Investigation of physical characteristics of intertidal zone using NASA/JPL fully polarimetric AIRSAR data