The relationship between the backscattering coefficient and the biomass of narrow and broad leaf crops

• Published in: IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing Vol. 39; no. 4; pp. 873 - 884
• Main Authors: Macelloni, G., Paloscia, S., Pampaloni, P., Marliani, F., Gai, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-04-2001; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; Applied geophysics; Backscatter; Backscattering; Biological and medical sciences; Biomass; Crops; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Generalities. Biometrics, experimentation. Remote sensing; Internal geophysics; L-band; Plants (biology); Plants (organisms); Radiative transfer; Remote sensing; Satellites; Shape; Solid modeling; Synthetic aperture radar; Trends; Vegetation; Southern Europe; Italy; Sweden; Scandinavia; models; biomass; absorption; Europe; Space remote sensing; remote sensing; vegetation; digital simulation; backscattering; agriculture; synthetic aperture radar; airborne methods; leaves; plants; geometry
• ISSN: 0196-2892; 1558-0644
• DOI: 10.1109/36.917914

The influence of the shape and dimensions of plant constituents on the backscattering of agricultural vegetation is investigated. Multifrequency multitemporal polarimetric data, collected at C- and L-bands by means of airborne and satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR), showed that the relations between the backscattering of crops and the vegetation biomass depend on plant type, and that there are different trends for "narrow" and "broad" leaf crops. In the latter crops, backscattering increases with an increase in the biomass, especially at L-band. This behavior is typical of media in which scattering is dominant, whereas on "narrow leaf" plants, the trend is flat or decreasing, denoting a major contribution of absorption. Theoretical simulations obtained with a discrete element radiative transfer model have confirmed that a different backscattering of crops with the same biomass may be due to plant geometry.