IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 4, NO.

2, JUNE 2011

439

Dense Temporal Series of C- and L-band SAR Data

for Soil Moisture Retrieval Over Agricultural Crops
Anna Balenzano, Francesco Mattia, Senior Member, IEEE, Giuseppe Satalino, and Malcolm W. J. Davidson

AbstractThis paper investigates the potential of multi-temporal C- and L-band SAR data, acquired within a short revisiting
time (12 weeks), to map temporal changes of surface soil moisture
) underneath agricultural crops. The analysed data
content (
consist of a new ground and SAR data set acquired on a weekly
basis from late April to early August 2006 over the DEMMIN
(Durable Environmental Multidisciplinary Monitoring Information Network) agricultural site (Northern Germany) during the
European Space Agency 2006 AgriSAR campaign. The paper
firstly investigates the main scattering mechanisms characterizing
the interaction between the SAR signal and crops, such as winter
wheat and rape. Then, the relationship between backscatter and
soil moisture content temporal changes as a function of different
SAR bands and polarizations is studied. Observations indicate
that rationing of the multi-temporal radar backscatter can be a
simple and effective way to decouple the effect of vegetation and
surface roughness from the effect of soil moisture changes, when
volume scattering is not dominant. The study also assesses to
which extent changes in the incidence angle between subsequent
radar acquisitions may affect the radar sensitivity to soil moisture
content. Finally, an algorithm based on the change detection
technique retrieving superficial soil moisture content is proposed
and assessed both on simulated and experimental data. Results
indicate that for crops relatively insensitive to volume scattering
in the vegetation canopy (as for instance winter wheat at C-band
can be retrieved
or winter rape and winter wheat at L-band),
during the whole growing season, with accuracies ranging between
3 ]. We also show that low incidence angles
5% and 6% [ 3
(e.g., 20 35 ) and HH polarization are generally better suited to
retrieval than VV polarization and higher incidence angles.
Index TermsSentinel-1, SMAP, soil moisture retrieval, synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

I. INTRODUCTION

HE major difficulties in monitoring bio-geophysical

parameters of agricultural surfaces using SAR sensors
are due to the dependence of the observed SAR data on multiple bio-geophysical parameters including volumetric soil
, soil roughness, vegetation biomass
moisture content
and canopy structure [1][5]. Decoupling the effect of
soil and vegetation on the scattered SAR signal is an open and
Manuscript received July 31, 2009; revised February 06, 2010; accepted May
03, 2010. Date of publication August 16, 2010; date of current version May 20,
2011. This work was supported by ESA under Grants 19558/06/NL/HE and
19974/06/I/LG.
A. Balenzano, F. Mattia, and G. Satalino are with the Consiglio Nazionale
delle Ricerche (CNR), Istituto di Studi sui Sistemi Intelligenti per lAutomazione (ISSIA), I-70126 Bari, Italy (e-mail: balenzano@ba.issia.cnr.it).
M. W. J. Davidson is with the European Space Agency, European Space Research and Technology Center (ESA-ESTEC), EOP/SMS, Nordwijk 2201 AG,
The Netherlands.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTARS.2010.2052916

challenging task, particularly for agricultural areas where the

geometrical parameters of plant constituents span the typical
to L-band)
range of microwave wavelengths (e.g., from
throughout the growing season.
Over the last 15 years, the use of decomposition theorems,
applied to fully polarimetric SAR data [6], has been one of
the most elegant and promising techniques investigated to
decompose the scattered radar signal into surface and volume
contributions with applications, for instance, for the retrieval
of soil moisture content underneath agricultural crops [7],
[8]. However, most of the obtained results concerning soil
moisture retrieval are not sufficiently accurate to meet scientific
requirements [9], at least without the use of additional a priori
information on surface parameters [10], [11]. A second approach showing a strong potential for soil moisture monitoring,
particularly in view of near future missions characterized by
short-repeating cycles (e.g., Sentinel-1 [12], SMAP [13]), is
based on change detection technique [14]. The rational of this
method is that temporal changes of surface roughness, canopy
structure and vegetation biomass take place at longer temporal scales than soil moisture changes (excluding cultivation
practices). Therefore, multi-temporal acquisitions with a short
repeating cycle are expected to track changes in soil moisture
content only, since other parameters affecting radar backscatter
can be considered constant [15]. Change detection technique
for soil moisture monitoring is applied operationally at low
spatial resolution using scatterometer data [16] and it has also
been investigated in previous studies dealing with SAR data
[17], [18]. One of the main reasons hampering a more extensive
investigation of the method at high spatial resolutions has been
the lack of long and dense time series of SAR data that are
necessary in this approach.
In this context, the objective of this paper is to assess the potential of change detection technique applied to multi-temporal
C- and L-band SAR data for monitoring soil moisture changes
underneath agricultural crops. The experimental data come from
the European Space Agency (ESA) AgriSAR 2006 campaign,
which encompassed airborne SAR and ground data acquired
roughly every week during the entire 2006 growing season over
the DEMMIN (Durable Environmental Multidisciplinary Monitoring Information Network) agricultural site in Germany.
The paper firstly evaluates the radar sensitivity to soil moisture content at different frequencies, polarizations, incidence angles and for different crop types and vegetation growing stages.
To support the interpretation of the observed relationships between the radar response and surface parameters and to assess
retrieval strategy, a theoretical scattering
the validity of the
model, based on Radiative Transfer (RT) approach, is employed.

1939-1404/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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Fig. 1. Land cover map of the airborne SAR system East-West track. The studied rape (140-110-101) and wheat (221-230-250) fields are indicated as a function
of the incidence angle.

Subsequently, the sensitivity of multi-temporal SAR intensity

ratios to changes of soil moisture content underneath agricultural crops is assessed and compared with model predictions.
Furthermore, the impact of changes in incidence angle between
subsequent radar acquisitions to soil moisture content sensitivity
is investigated. Finally, the performance of the change detection technique to quantitatively retrieve temporal series of soil
moisture content values during the vegetation growing season is
assessed using simulated and experimental data.
II. MATERIALS
A. Test Site and Ground Data
The ESA AgriSAR 2006 campaign was carried out over the
DEMMIN agricultural site, in the Northern Germany from April
to August 2006. It encompassed multi-temporal airborne SAR
acquisitions together with extensive in situ measurements of
bio-geophysical parameters during the entire growing season
[19]. The principal objective of the campaign was to assess the
impact of future ESA Sentinel-1 and -2 missions for land applications and to provide a well-documented database to investigate the bio-geophysical parameter retrieval.
The study area is characterized by an almost flat topography
) and large land parcels with an av(altitude variations
erage area of 80 ha. The main crops for the test site were winter
wheat, winter rape, winter barley, maize and sugar beet.
The 12 weekly in situ measurements performed mostly
simultaneously to the radar flights include: total fresh and dry
biomass, vegetation height and crop density, crop coverage,
volumetric soil moisture content at depth 05 cm and surface
roughness. Ancillary information about precipitation, soil
texture and phenological stage is also available.
This study focuses on three winter wheat (221-230-250) and
three winter rape (140-110-101) fields. Fig. 1 shows a land cover
map of the area imaged by the airborne SAR system along the
East-West track (10 km long and 3 km wide) and identifies the
location of each rape and wheat field as a function of the incidence angle (from approximately 30 to 50 ).
The intent has been to select, per each crop, homogeneous
fields (i.e., similar ground conditions), located at increasing
incident angles within the image swath (i.e., from near to
far range) in order to study the radar sensitivity to surface

Fig. 2. Temporal behavior of mean fresh biomass [kg=m ] (a) and volumetric
soil moisture content [%] (b) values over the two wheat and the two rape fields
evaluated per three locations on each Day of Year (DoY). Standard deviations
are also reported. On the right of (b), precipitation rate [mm/day] is illustrated.

parameters at different incidence angles. Although ground

data were collected only over 2 out of 3 wheat (i.e., fields 230
and 250) and rape fields (i.e., fields 140 and 101), the ground
conditions of the fields 221 and 110 can be considered similar
to those of fields 230, 250 and 140, 101, respectively. Such a
conjecture is supported by Fig. 2(a) and (b), which show that
and
values, both for wheat
the intra-field variability of
and rape crops, is larger than the inter-field variability observed
during the growing season. From April to August, there was an
from approximately 27% to 5% in average
overall drying of
[Fig. 2(b)]. However, there were important and temporarily
concentrated precipitation events from mid May to early June

BALENZANO et al.: DENSE TEMPORAL SERIES OF C- AND L-BAND SAR DATA FOR SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVAL OVER AGRICULTURAL CROPS

441

and from end June to early July, during which two considerable
were measured, i.e., 9.2% and 16.2% of
increments of
increment in average on DoYs 136 and 172, respectively.
Concerning the soil surface roughness, winter crops (101-250
fields) had similar soil roughness, approximately 1 cm in average, during the entire campaign [20] (though this figure requires a certain caution because it was estimated over a sampling area of 70 70 cm ).
B. SAR Data
In this study, the SAR data acquired by the Deutsches
Zentrum fr Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) Experimental-SAR
(E-SAR) airborne system at C and L-band have been analyzed.
For each of the 12 flights, C- band data were acquired in a dual
polarization mode [horizontal-horizontal (HH) or vertical-vertical (VV) and cross-polarization (XP)] and L-band data using
the fully polarimetric mode. On the 2nd of August rape field 140
had already been harvested and no complete ground data were
collected on the other fields, therefore the last SAR acquisition
has not been included in this analysis.
The backscattering coefficients of the area corresponding
to the monitored fields have been extracted from the DLR
E-SAR multi-looked and geocoded products with 2 m pixel
size and averaged at field scale to make speckle noise negligible
(the number of pixels per field ranged approximately between
112000 and 280000) with respect to the radiometric accuracy
dB at C and L bands [21].
which is within
III. SENSITIVITY OF SAR DATA TO SOIL MOISTURE CONTENT
In this section the temporal series of the SAR data are analat different
ysed in order to establish the SAR sensitivity to
frequencies, polarizations, incidence angles, and for significant
changes in the vegetation growing stages, i.e., before and after
heading on DoY 158 and development of fruits on DoY 164 for
wheat and rape crops, respectively.
Fig. 3 compares the temporal backscatter profiles of wheat
(triangles) and rape (squares) fields at low incidence angle
30 , at VV (continuous line), HH (dash-dotted line) and
XP (dashed line) polarizations at both C [Fig. 3(a) and (b)]
and L [Fig. 3(c) and (d)] bands. Rape field shows the highest
backscattering values at all frequencies and polarizations. The
radar temporal signature of the two crops is quite different at
C-band, whereas at L-band there is a high correlation, approximately 0.8, in the temporal trends of winter wheat and winter
rape regardless of polarization.
A. Backscatter at C Band of Winter Wheat
Figs. 2(b) and 3(a) show that although
increases of 6.3%
on DoY 136 (before heading) the backscattering coefficient does
not significantly change, i.e., differences of 0.2 dB and of 0.5
dB at VV and HH polarization have been measured, respectively. The relatively small variation of backscatter is due to the
fact that at this early growing stage the wheat crop is characterized by a strong attenuation of backscatter [22]. On DoY 172
(17.8%) and the
(after heading), for the higher increment of
increases of 1.9 dB at VV
reduced vegetation attenuation,
and of 1.7 dB at HH polarization. Moreover, the V polarized
incidence wave is also significantly more attenuated than the

Fig. 3. Comparison between the temporal behavior of backscattering coefficients ( ) of wheat (triangles) and rape (squares) fields at low ( 30 ) incidence angle, at VV (continuous line), HH (dash dotted line) and XP (dashed
line) polarizations, at C (a), (b) and L (c), (d) bands, respectively. Error bar accounting for the  calibration is 1 dB.

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H one, because of the predominant vertical structure of wheat

canopy. In fact, the difference between HH and VV backscatter
increases up to 2.8 dB on DoY 158 when biomass reached 4.5 kg
[Fig. 2(a)], then it keeps slowly decreasing because of vegetation drying. These observations would be in accordance with
previous experimental studies [2], [23], [24], which have shown
that the backscattering coefficient at C band of winter wheat decreases with the increase of fresh biomass during the first part
of the growing season (i.e., until to heading). This is interpreted
physically in terms of soil backscatter attenuated by the canopy
[3], [22], [25]. Therefore, SAR signal of winter wheat at C band
and variable vegetation atis influenced by both changes in
tenuation depending on crop status.
B. Backscatter at C Band of Winter Rape
For winter rape, the comparable values of VV and HH
[Fig. 3(a)] and the high values of
at cross polarization
[Fig. 3(b)] indicate an important scattering contribution from
at C band is expected
the crop canopy. As a consequence,
to be relatively insensitive to changes in
during the whole
monitored growing season. This is consistent with the experimental observations which show that, on DoY 136,
increases of 11.6% whereas
decreases at all polarizations
and on DoY 172,
increases by 16.4% whereas
varies by
less than 1 dB. This would agree with previous theoretical [26]
and experimental studies [23], [27] demonstrating that SAR
backscatter of winter rape at C band is influenced principally
by the vegetation response (i.e., volume scattering).
C. Backscatter at L Band of Winter Wheat
The temporal backscatter profile of winter wheat [Fig. 3(c)]
evolution [Fig. 2(b)] during the entire growing
follows the
season for all polarisations. For instance, on Doy 136 an increase
of 3.7 dB at VV and 5.4 dB at HH polarization were observed
increment of approximately 6.3%. However, it may
for a
be worth mentioning that the strong backscatter increase observed on DoY 136 as well as its substantial persistence until
DoY 172 can only partially be attributed to the moderate
changes recorded in the period (as it will be shown later on in
Section III-E). On DoY 172, backscatter increments of 0.8 dB
at VV and 2.2 dB at HH polarization were measured in coincrement of 17.8%. The differential attenuincidence of
ation of HH and VV backscatter due to wheat canopy structure is also visible at L band, starting from DoY 131 when the
. These observations inbiomass becomes higher than 2
during the
dicate that SAR signal at L band is sensitive to
entire growing season and that at HH polarization it is more senthan at VV polarization.
sitive to
D. Backscatter at L Band of Winter Rape
Backscatter increments of about 2.6 dB at VV and 3.5 dB at
HH polarization are observed on DoY 136 [Fig. 3(c)] for a
increment of 11.6% [Fig. 2(b)]. Whereas increases of 0.8 dB
at HH polarization and is stationary at VV polarization in coincidence with the second important precipitation event producing a
increment of 16.4%. Moreover, because of the higher values
with respect to wheat
[Fig. 2(a)], the differential
of rape
vegetation attenuation of HH and VV backscatter is visible since

the early growing season for rape crop. It reaches 3.5 dB on DoY
172 at the end of the development of fruits and starts decreasing
at ripening.
E. Radiative Transfer Model Simulations
To better understand the nature and strength of the soil and
canopy contributions to rape and wheat backscatter, a theoretical model, based on RT first-order radiative transfer approach,
has been employed. The model represents the crop canopy as
a plane-stratified multi-layer of vegetation elements overlying
a rough half-space. Dielectric cylinders of circular cross section have been used to represent stems, branches and ears (at
C band). Scattering of a finite length cylinder has been computed by using the infinite cylinder approximation [28]. Leaves
have been depicted by circular or elliptical disks and pods and
ears (at L band) by prolate spheroids. The scattering amplitudes
of disks and spheroids have been computed by using the Generalized Rayleigh-Gans (GRG) approximation [28], and the small
spheroid approximation by the T-matrix approach [29], respectively. The direct backscatter from the soil surface is calculated
by the Integral Equation Model (IEM) [30]. The dielectric constants of each vegetation component and soil surface are evaluated using [31] and [32], respectively. The model has been validated [33] using the detailed ground data set collected over the
Matera site in 2003 [22]. The total scattering (tot) consists of
the soil surface response attenuated by the canopy (ground), the
direct scattering from the vegetation elements (veg) and double
bounce (db) between ground and crop canopy. In-depth comparisons between model simulations and SAR measurements
are beyond the limit of this paper, as no detailed geometrical
measurements were available. The missing information concerning the length, width and thickness of geometrical canopy
parameters and the distribution of fresh biomass among canopy
components (e.g., leaves, stems, etc) has been inferred from
more detailed ground data collected during previous campaigns
[22], [34].
Fig. 4 shows the contributions to the simulated backscattering coefficients of winter wheat and rape at C (a), (b) and L
(c), (d) bands and HH polarization, respectively. The E-SAR
data are included for comparison. At C band, the simulated
total backscatters reproduce the experimental data with an accuracy of 1.1 dB. Model simulations confirm that the dominant
backscatter contribution is the direct soil response attenuated
by vegetation canopy for winter wheat and the direct vegetation
response for winter rape. At L band, although simulated total
backscatters reproduce the changes of the experimental data, a
high root mean square error (rmse) has been found, i.e., 2.5 dB
for wheat [Fig. 4(c)] and 2.2 dB for rape [Fig. 4(d)]. The main
differences between measured and simulated values are in the
period from mid May to end of June, for both winter wheat and
winter rape, where a bias of approximately 4 dB is observed.
Such a systematic increment can be also observed for the
measured backscatter at VV polarization although at least 1 dB
lower with respect to HH polarization [Fig. 3(c)]. A similar
behavior is also evident over the other wheat and rape fields,
imaged at higher incidence angles over the DEMMIN site, but
it is not so evident at C-band [Fig. 3(a)]. As the discrepancy
regards both winter wheat and winter rape, its causes are more

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443

Fig. 5. Backscattering coefficients versus 30 , 40 and 50 incidence angles,

at C (a) and L (b) bands and VV polarization for wheat (dashed line) and rape
(continuous line) fields. DoY
, DoY
.

131 = stars

186 = triangles

likely related to soil changes (i.e., surface roughness or soil

homogeneity) rather than to crop canopy changes. In fact, the
important precipitation events occurred between mid May and
end of June may have determined abrupt changes in the vertical
profile distribution of soil moisture content with an important
increase of L-band backscatter, i.e., higher at HH than at
VV polarization [35]. An alternative interpretation could be
related to a change in the surface roughness due to the strong
precipitations. However, due to the scarcity of detailed ground
information, no conclusion can be drawn on the cause of the
observed phenomenon.
Regarding the backscattering mechanisms at L band, for
winter wheat [Fig. 4(c)], the main scattering contribution
comes from the ground (dashed line), whereas for rape, no
predominant scattering contributions to the total backscatter
can be recognized [Fig. 4(d)]. Indeed, vegetation and ground
contributions are roughly equal for a well-developed rape
canopy.
F. Effect of Incidence Angle

Fig. 4. Simulated scattering mechanisms at C (a), (b) and L (c), (d) bands and
HH polarization for wheat and rape fields, respectively: Total (i.e., tot, continuous line), ground (dashed line), vegetation (i.e., veg., dotted line), double
bounce (i.e., db, dot dashed line) scattering. Measured data (continuous line
triangles) are reported for comparison.

In the following, the scattering mechanisms playing a role

at higher incidence angles are investigated by interpreting the
SAR data behavior both at C and L bands as a function of
incidence angle. Fig. 5 compares the VV backscatter values
observed at approximately 30 , 40 and 50 incidence angles
[Fig. 1] and at C [Fig. 5(a)] and at L [Fig. 5(b)] bands over

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winter wheat (dashed line) and winter rape (continuous line).

Two dates, DoYs 131 (stars) and 186 (triangles), referring to
critical phonological stages, i.e., heading for winter wheat and
development of fruits for winter rape, have been selected.
1) C Band: On DoY 131 wheat backscatter at VV from
30 to 50 incidence angles decreases of approximately 6 dB
[Fig. 5(a)], indicating that also at higher incidence angle the attenuated soil contribution is prevailing. Moreover, the decline
is steeper in the interval between 30 and 40 than between
40 and 50 . This means that beyond 40 incidence angle the
direct volume scattering of wheat canopy emerges as already
noted in [22]. On DoY 186 (after heading) a significantly different behavior is observed. Backscatter decreases by approximately 1 dB from 30 to 40 and then increases at 50 by
1.2 dB. This behavior can be explained by the fact that after
heading, between 30 and 40 incidence angles, the positive
vegetation contribution tends to compensate the decrease of attenuated soil scattering, whereas beyond 40 there is a change
in the dominant scattering mechanism from soil backscatter to
canopy backscatter, as already noted in [3], [22], [25], [26]. As a
consequence, before heading there is a significant sensitivity to
soil moisture changes irrespective to incidence angle. Whereas,
sensitivity to
is considerably reduced
after heading the
at incidence angles beyond 40 .
For winter rape, a moderate backscatter decreasing rate with
the incidence angle is observed regardless to the phenological
stage, i.e., the backscatter decline from 30 to 50 is within 2 dB
both before and after the development of fruits. Such a behavior
is in agreement with the results reported in [26] and [27] and it
indicates that the volume scattering is the dominant mechanism
for winter rape at medium-high incidence angles. Therefore,
of winter rape is poorly sensitive to
changes irrespectively
to the incidence angle.
2) L Band: At L band [Fig. 5(b)], winter wheat and winter
on DoY 131 show a substantially similar angular berape
havior, even though the decline of winter wheat backscatter from
30 to 40 is slightly higher than the one of winter rape. However, beyond 40 there is a reduction of the decreasing rate indicating a positive contribution of vegetation scattering. The latter
is more evident on DoY 186 for both winter wheat and winter
rape, as the angular dependence of from 30 to 50 decreases.
These considerations are in agreement with the SAR data analysis reported in [27]. Moreover, winter rape backscatter is always
higher than winter wheat backscatter because of the higher direct volume contribution, due to the higher biomass values, and
double bounce contributions, related to the higher stem height.
Despite the increment of vegetation contribution at higher incidence angle, the SAR signal at L band can keep its sensitivity
to soil moisture changes because of the significant contribution
of the ground and the double bounce scattering mechanisms.
Previous observations can be summarized as follows:
1) for winter wheat, at C band and relatively low incidence
angle (i.e., 30 ) it is confirmed that the principal scattering
mechanism is the attenuated soil contribution for the entire growing season and that VV polarization is more attenuated than HH polarization; whereas, at higher incidence angles (e.g., 40 50 ), the direct volume contribution from the canopy starts to be significant after heading.

TABLE I
CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS (R) BETWEEN THE CO-POLARIZED  CHANGES
 [dB] AND SOIL MOISTURE
ON TWO CONSECUTIVE DATES 
(
) AND FRESH BIOMASS (
) RATIOS MEASURED OVER WHEAT AND RAPE
FIELDS, AT C AND L BANDS AND AT APPROXIMATELY 30 . THE SIGNIFICANCE
( ) OF THE CORRELATION (R) IS ALSO REPORTED (THE SIZE SAMPLE IS 10)

fb

At L band, HH polarization and lower incidence angle,

the wheat canopy is almost transparent to the SAR signal,
whereas at VV polarization and incidence angles higher
than 40 the volume contribution is observed;
2) for winter rape, the backscatter at C-band is mostly inirrespective to the incidence angle. This
sensitive to
means that there is an important direct volume contribution
from the canopy that tends to mask the soil response since
early phenological stages. At L band, there is always a
significant attenuated soil contribution, through direct and
double-bounce mechanisms, together with an important direct volume term.
For both wheat and winter rape fields, the HH backscatter at L
for all the investigated
band shows the higher sensitivity to
incidence angles.
IV. SAR VERSUS

CHANGES

On the basis of the interpretation of the main scattering mechanisms characterizing wheat and rape crops, the ratio of SAR
backscatters on two consecutive dates both at HH and VV polarizations is expected to mainly depend on soil and not on vegetation changes for wheat at C and L-bands and for rape at L-band
but not at C band. Indeed, this is what we observe in Table I that
reports the correlation coefficients (R) between the temporal seratios on two consecutive dates, indiries of co-polarized
cated by superscripts (1) and (2), i.e.,
, or difference of
when expressed in decibels, i.e.,
, and
the correspondent temporal series of
and ratios measured
on wheat and rape crops imaged at approximately 30 incidence
changes are significantly correlated during the
angle. and
entire growing season (0.70 at VV and 0.77 at HH) for winter
and
wheat, whereas there is almost no correlation between
changes. For winter rape, no significant correlation between
changes and both
and changes is observed. At L band,
the highest correlation between changes and
changes can
be observed at HH polarization both for wheat (0.70) and rape
(0.64) crops.

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445

TABLE II
RMSE AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS (R) BETWEEN MEASURED AND RT
MODEL AND ALPHA APPROXIMATION CO-POLARIZED  CHANGES ON TWO
CONSECUTIVE DATES 
 [dB] , AT C BAND, AT APPROXIMATELY
30 AND AT BOTH VV AND HH POLARIZATIONS FOR WHEAT CROP

Fig. 6. Temporal behavior of E-SAR (continuous line) and RT model (dashed

line) and alpha approximation (dotted line) backscatter changes on two consec [dB]), at C band, at HH polarization, and at approxutive dates (i.e 
imately 30 incidence angle for wheat crop.

Under the simplifying assumption that the backscatter response is just due to ground response attenuated by vegetation
ratio
canopy and that roughness surface is unchanged, the
between two consecutive acquisitions
, can be expressed as a function of the dielectric constant , the incidence
angle and the polarization
or VV [36], i.e.,
(1)
where

Equation (1) holds for smooth and medium rough surfaces

[37] with respect to the observation wavelength (as usually the
case at C-band and for agricultural soils after sowing [38]) and it
is appealing because not only it does not depend on vegetation,
but it also is independent of surface roughness parameters.
In the following, the validity of this assumption is assessed.
A. C Band
For the wheat field 221, Fig. 6 compares the temporal behavior of the ratio between backscatters on two consecutive
dates at C-band and HH polarization, measured by E-SAR (continuous line) and simulated by the RT model (dashed line) and
by means of (1) (dotted line) (hereafter referred to as alpha approximation). Table II reports the rmse and correlation coefficients (R) between SAR and simulated values at both HH and
VV polarizations. The good agreement between observed and
simulated values using both RT model and alpha approximation confirms that by using a change detection approach the influence of wheat canopy is remarkably reduced.
B. L Band
For the winter wheat (field 221) and winter rape (field 140),
Fig. 7 compares the temporal behavior of the ratio between

Fig. 7. Temporal behavior of E-SAR (continuous line) and RT model (dashed

line) and alpha approximation (dotted line) backscatter changes on two consecutive dates (i.e 
 [dB]), at L band, at HH polarization, and at approximately 30 incidence angle for wheat (a) and rape (b) crops.

backscatters on two consecutive dates at L band and HH polarization, measured by E-SAR (continuous line) and simulated
by the RT (dashed line) and by the alpha approximation (dotted
line). Table III reports the rmse and correlation coefficients (R)
between SAR and simulated values, at both VV and HH polarizations. Simulated ratios obtained by using (1) show the highest
correlation with observed SAR ratios at HH polarization, for
both wheat (i.e., 0.85) and rape crops (i.e., 0.69). The highest
discrepancies are observed for the third and the eighth ratios
(i.e., DoY 136 over DoY 131 and DoY 186 over DoY 172) for
the wheat field, which includes the dates when variations in soil
ground conditions have been observed.
A first important consideration is that the agreement between
observed and simulated data of Fig. 7 is better than the one
of Fig. 4(c) and (d) where the comparison between observed
and simulated backscattering coefficients is shown. In addition,
Fig. 7 demonstrates that observed ratios between backscatters

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TABLE III
RMSE AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS (R) BETWEEN MEASURED AND RT
MODEL AND ALPHA APPROXIMATION CO-POLARIZED  CHANGES ON TWO
 [dB] , AT L BAND, AT APPROXIMATELY
CONSECUTIVE DATES 
30 AND BOTH VV AND HH POLARIZATIONS FOR WHEAT AND RAPE CROPS

V. IMPLICATION FOR

RETRIEVAL

In this section, it is investigated under which conditions soil

moisture content can be retrieved from dense temporal series
of radar backscatter ratios. The explored method is based on
the alpha approximation for the HH polarization reported in
(1). Setting
result in
linear equations in
, i.e.,

, SAR acquisitions
unknown Fresnel coefficients

(2)

TABLE IV
RMSE AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS (R) BETWEEN MEASURED AND
RT MODEL AND ALPHA APPROXIMATION CO-POLARIZED  CHANGES
ON TWO CONSECUTIVE DATES AND AT DIFFERENT INCIDENCE ANGLES,
 (40 )  (30 ) [dB], AT L BAND AND HH POLARIZATIONS FOR
WHEAT AND RAPE CROPS

on consecutive dates can be fairly well simulated for both winter

wheat and winter rape by using the very simple alpha approximation approach, completely disregarding the presence of vegetation. This is not the case when comparing the backscattering
coefficients as in Fig. 4(d) where the disagreement between observed and simulated backscatter response of winter rape would
have been of several dBs if the simulation model had included
the soil contribution only.
In other words, Figs. 6 and 7 convey the message that the
multi-temporal backscatter ratio, between close subsequent
dates, is a feature little sensitive to surface roughness and
vegetation canopy contributions whereas it is significantly and
simply related to soil moisture changes.
C. Changes at Different Incidence Angles
The effect of changes in the incidence angle between two
consecutive acquisitions has also been investigated.
Best results are obtained for ratios at L band and HH polarization over both wheat and rape. Table IV summarizes the correspondent rmse and correlation coefficients (R) between meachanges on two consecutive dates and
sured and simulated
at different incidence angles, namely at approximately 40 and
30 , i.e.,
.
The rmse are higher than those observed for unchanged incidence angles (Table III) and get worst for higher incidence
, however the correlation coefangle, i.e.,
ficients are higher than 0.7 indicating that the backscatter ratio is
still sensitive to soil moisture changes. Therefore, it appears feasible to retrieve soil moisture content using L-band backscatter
ratios even when the backscattering coefficients have been acquired at different angle.

with
,
, and
. The number
ranges between
and
,
of equations
depending on whether the ratios between two consecutive
backscatter values only or all possible ratios between two subsequent backscatters are considered, respectively. It is worth
emphasizing that the entire approach is based on the hypothesis
that surface roughness conditions remain constant during the
acquisitions, so that the choice of the
value is strictly
connected to the time-span of the
acquisitions and to the
temporal behavior of the soil surfaces. In this respect, we have
selected
, as it is plausible that at least between
consecutive and close SAR acquisitions surface conditions do
not significantly change. Under these conditions, the resulting
equations in
unknowns is
linear system of
under determined and an infinite number of solutions satisfy
(2). In our case, the solution is found subject to the constraints
that
for
. Indeed, at C
and L bands and at 30 40 incidence angles, varying soil
moisture content from 3% to 40%, the
coefficients, range
approximately between
and
over a
loamy sand soil, which is one of the main soil texture classes
over the DEMMIN site.
Once
coefficient is retrieved for each date, the relative
dielectric constant
can be analytically derived and then the
soil moisture content can be estimated, by using the inverse of
the empirical expression of Hallikainen et al. [32]. The performance of the algorithm has been firstly assessed over data sets
simulated by the RT model, which allows to explore the applicability of the alpha approximation in a very large number
of cases, and then on experimental data. In the simulation, the
SAR measurement error
, where
is the
SAR system radiometric accuracy and
is the SAR system
radiometric resolution, has been accounted for by adding to the
modelled backscattering coefficient a Gaussian noise with zero
mean and a standard deviation equal to 0.7 dB. Such a choice
corresponds to
dB (e.g., Sentinel-1 [12]) and a radiometric resolution of
dB (e.g., assuming fully developed speckle and considering a confidence interval with 95%
probability, it amounts to average over approximately 500 independent samples [39], which roughly corresponds to a linear
resolution of 220 m for the Sentinel-1 system [12] in the interferometric wide swath acquisition mode). The observed temporal
series of backscatter ratios has been simulated by means of the
RT model, i.e.,
, both for wheat and
rape canopies at different and
values (covering the entire
range of values observed over the DEMMIN site). It is worth
noting that IEM model, adopted in the RT approach to simulate

BALENZANO et al.: DENSE TEMPORAL SERIES OF C- AND L-BAND SAR DATA FOR SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVAL OVER AGRICULTURAL CROPS

447

TABLE V
SIMULATED (hxi) AND RETRIEVED (hy i) MEAN m VALUES, THE A AND
B PARAMETERS OF THE LINEAR FIT (I.E., Y = A + Bx), THE RMSE
AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENT (R) BETWEEN THE SIMULATED AND THE
RETRIEVED m VALUES, USING N = 3, N = 6 HH SAR ACQUISITIONS AT
C BAND AND AT 30 INCIDENCE. THE TOTAL (MODEL AND MEASUREMENT)
ERROR BETWEEN RT MODEL AND ALPHA APPROXIMATION BACKSCATTER
RATIOS OF WHEAT AND RAPE CROPS AT DIFFERENT FRESH BIOMASS
VALUES (f b) IS ALSO REPORTED

TABLE VI
AS TABLE V BUT AT L-BAND

Fig. 8. Scatter plot between observed and retrieved m values obtained by

using N = 11 SAR acquisitions at C band over field 221 (wheat) (a) and N =
3 SAR acquisitions at L band over fields 221 and 230 (wheat) and 140 and
110 (rape) (b). The observed (hxi) and retrieved (hy i) mean m values, the
linear fit parameters, (i.e., y = A [%] +Bx), the rms errors and the correlation
coefficients (R) are also reported at the upper left corner. At the lower right
corner, results obtained neglecting retrieved m values beyond 2- confidence
interval (1 and 2 outliers surrounded by squared have been excluded for C and
L band, respectively) are illustrated.

the soil contribution, does not analytically predict the decoupling between the term depending on dielectric constant and on
the roughness [30]. Under these circumstances, the performed
simulation, which is based on the alpha approximation, i.e.,
(3)
accounts for the presence of model errors concerning both the
vegetation and the soil layer.
Tables V and VI report the simulated and retrieved mean
values (i.e.,
[%] and
[%], respectively), the linear fit parameters A [%] and B (i.e.,
), the rmse, and the correlation coefficient (R) between 209520 simulated and retrieved
values, at C and L-band, respectively. Two sets of simulations, referring to
and
, at 30 incidence angle,
at HH polarization and at different
values (i.e., 0.6
,

2.6
and 5
) have been performed. The total rmse
errors (i.e., including model and measurement error) are also
reported. In general, they increase with
and are larger at Cthan at L-band and for winter rape than winter wheat. More precisely, for winter wheat, both at C and L band, the total error on
backscatter is not larger than 1.1 dB, whereas for winter rape at
C-band it can exceed 2.0 dB. As a consequence, at C-band soil
moisture values can be retrieved with accuracies between 5%
and 6% during the entire winter wheat phenological cycle and
during the first phenological stages of winter rape. Conversely,
at L-band,
can be retrieved over wheat and rape fields during
the entire growing season with comparable accuracies. In general, better results on
retrieval are achieved as increases
from 3 to 6 irrespective to the value. This is probably because
the higher , the better the ratio between the
independent
equations and the
unknowns, under the hypothesis that soil
roughness and
do not significantly change. It may be worth
mentioning that for larger values of a sort of saturation in the
rmse was observed.
Concerning the AgriSAR experimental data, Fig. 8(a) shows
values obthe scatter plots between observed and retrieved
tained using
acquisitions at C band over wheat field 221

448

IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 4, NO. 2, JUNE 2011

and Fig. 8(b) shows the scatter plot obtained using

acquisitions at L band over wheat fields 221, and 230 and rape fields
and retrieved
mean
140 and 110. The observed
values, the linear fit parameters, i.e.,
, the rms
errors and the correlation coefficients (R) are also reported at
the upper left corner. At the lower right corner, results obtained
after eliminating one [Fig. 8(a)] and two [Fig. 8(b)] outliers surrounded by squares (i.e., actual errors larger than 2- confidence
interval) are illustrated. Disregarding the outliers, at C band the
rmse error reduces from 7.6% to 5.1%, whereas at L-band the
error decreases from 6.5% to 5.5%. These figures are in overall
good agreement with the simulation results reported in Tables V
and VI. In fact, at L-band, unlike simulation results, better results have been obtained for
than
acquisitions.
This inconsistency is probably related to the fact that, as noted
in Section III-E, the precipitations occurred between mid May
and end of June may have determined changes in the soil surface conditions, so that the algorithm assumption of unchanged
rather
surface is better satisfied considering groups of
than
SAR acquisitions.
, retrieved by using the above
In summary, the accuracy of
described change detection approach, is expected to range between 5% and 6%, depending on the characteristics of the SAR
temporal series and of the imaged surfaces.
VI. CONCLUSION
The paper describes the potential of dense temporal series of
SAR data at C and L band to follow changes of soil moisture
content underneath winter wheat and winter rape crops. The
study is based on E-SAR and ground data acquired, approximately every week from late April to early August 2006, over
the DEMMIN (Germany) site during the ESA AgriSAR camhas shown
paign. The sensitivity analysis of backscatter to
that at C band the radar signal is considerably influenced by
the canopy structure and the phenological stage of agricultural
crops; whereas at L band the backscatter is less sensitive to the
crop canopy and HH polarization shows the highest sensitivity
for both wheat and rape crops.
to
A significant improvement in decoupling the effect of vegetation and surface roughness from the effect of soil moisture
changes can be achieved by considering the backscatter ratio
between two close subsequent dates. In particular, it has been
assessed to which extent it is feasible to model the observed
backscatter ratio in terms of soil contribution only. For wheat
crops, a high (0.74) correlation and a small rmse (approximately
1 dB) have been found between observed and simulated C-band
HH polarized backscatter ratios. On the contrary, the same investigation for winter rape has shown that backscatter ratios are
little or not correlated with soil moisture changes.
At L-band, the backscatter ratio, particularly at HH polarchanges underlying both winter
ization, is sensitive to
wheat and winter rape crops and this holds true for low and
medium incidence angles (i.e., within 40 incidence). At 30
incidence, a correlation of 0.85 and 0.69 has been found between observed and simulated (considering soil contribution
only) HH backscatter ratios for winter wheat and winter rape,
respectively.

Finally, a soil moisture retrieval algorithm transforming tembackscatter ratios into

soil moisture
poral series of
content values has been devised and assessed over simulated and
experimental data. The use of multi-temporal data is beneficial
for the accuracy of the retrieval algorithm, under the condition
that roughness remains constant during the time span of the
acquisitions. The experimental analysis confirms that the choice
of is strictly connected to the condition of the soil surfaces.
The accuracies of the retrieved soil moisture values range between 5% and 6% when the dominant scattering mechanism is
not the volume scattering.
In summary, our findings suggest that:
1) at C-band there is a potential to use dense time series of HH
or (HH and HV) SAR data (as those that will be acquired
by the forthcoming Sentinel-1 mission) to monitor soil
moisture changes underlying, for instance, cereal crops, for
which the dominant scattering mechanism is the soil attenuated contribution. Under these circumstances, systematic
retrieval of soil moisture would first require a classification step to identify crop classes whose backscatter is not
dominated by the volume scattering. An option, which deserves future studies, is to use a threshold in the level of
cross polarized backscatter to identify the areas for which
the algorithm can work at C-band. In addition, it is worth
mentioning that the incidence angle is a critical issue because it should not exceed moderate values (e.g., 30 35 );
2) at L-band, the change detection technique is expected
to be able to track soil moisture changes underlying a
broad range of agricultural crops and to be less sensitive
to changes in the incidence angle between the first and the
second acquisition.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to the AgriSAR 2006 team (Instituto
Nacional de Tcnica Aeroespacial, ITRES Research Limited,
German Aerospace Center German Remote Sensing Data
Center, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research,
Geo-Informatics, University of Kiel, Friedrich-Schiller University, Laboratory of Hydrology and Water Management,
Istituto di Studi sui Sistemi Intelligenti per lAutomazione,
Danish Technical University, University of Alicante, University
of Valencia, Ludwig Maximilians University, University of
Naples Federico II, Free University of Berlin, International
Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation)
for providing the ground and SAR data collected during the
campaign and ESA for supporting the activities.
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Anna Balenzano received the Laurea degree (cum

laude) in physics from the University of Bari, Italy,
in 2003, where she worked with the Astroparticle
Physics Group, the Master degree in information
technology from the University of Benevento, Italy,
in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the
University of Bari in 2010.
From June 2004 through January 2005 she worked
as Java analyst programmer at Italdata S.p.A.,
Italy (Siemens Business Services). In summer
2005, she worked with the INTEC Services web
design/development team in Glasgow, Scotland, as participant to the European
Communitys Vocational Training Programme (LEONARDO). Since 2006, she
has been grantholder of Italian National Council of Research (CNR)Institute
of Intelligent Systems for Automation (ISSIA) in Bari, Italy. Her research work
focuses on direct modeling of electromagnetic scattering from vegetated and
bare soils and retrieval of bio-geophysical parameters from SAR images.

450

IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 4, NO. 2, JUNE 2011

Francesco Mattia received the Laurea degree in

physics and the Master degree in signal processing
from the University of Bari, Italy, in 1990 and 1994,
respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree from the
University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France, in 1999.
From 1991 to 1994 he has been grantholder of the
Italian National Council of Research (CNR) and of
the European Commission at the Institute for Remote
Sensing Applications of the Joint Research Centre,
Ispra, Italy. From 1995 to 2003, he was a research
scientist at the Institute for Information and Space
Technology (ITIS) of CNR, Matera, Italy. In 2003, he joined the Institute for
Intelligent Systems and Automation (ISSIA) of CNR, Bari, Italy, where he is
presently a senior research scientist. During 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999, he was
a visiting scientist at the Centre dEtudes Spatiales de la BIOsphere (CESBIO),
Toulouse, France. His scientific interests include the direct and inverse modeling of microwave scattering from land surfaces and the use of information derived from Earth observation sensors to improve land surface process models.
On these themes, he has been involved as CI or PI in several national and international scientific proposals concerning SAR sensors aboard ERS-1/2, ENVISAT,
ALOS and COSMO-SkyMed satellites.
In 2007, Dr. Mattia was co-organizer of the 5th International Symposium on
Retrieval of Bio- and Geophysical Parameters from SAR Data for Land Applications held in Bari, Italy.

Giuseppe Satalino received the Laurea (cum laude)

degree in computer science from the University
of Bari, Italy, in 1991. In the same year, he was a
summer student at the European Organization for
Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland,
where he worked on applications of neural networks
to high energy physics.
From 1993 to 1996, he was grantholder of Alenia
and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR).
Since 1996, he has been with the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation (ISSIA) of the
CNR, Bari, Italy. He worked in several national and international research
projects concerning image processing, data classification and remote sensing
applications. He participated in several SAR and ground radar experiments for
studies concerning the use of remote sensing for agricultural and hydrologic
applications. His main research field concerns data classification techniques
and methods for the retrieval of geo-physical parameters from SAR and optical
remote sensed data.

Malcolm W. J. Davidson was born in Canberra,

Australia, in 1968. He received the B.Sc. degree
(with Honours) in physics from the University of
Toronto, Canada, in 1990, the M.Sc. degree (with
distinction) in image processing and remote sensing
from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1992,
and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the Rheinische
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitt Bonn, Germany, in
1997. From 1997 to 2001 he worked at the Centre
DEtudes de la Biosphere (CESBIO) in Toulouse,
France, as a research associate.
He is currently affiliated with the Mission Science Division of the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESA-ESTEC). At ESA, he holds
the role of Mission Scientist for the future GMES Sentinel-1 mission (C-Band
SAR). His main responsibilities concern the formulation and of mission requirements for these missions and chairing mission advisory groups. He has also been
appointed Head of the Campaigns section in 2009 and is responsible in defining
and implementing airborne campaigns in support of Earth Observation (EO)
mission programs.