Adaptive Speckle Filtering in Radar Imagery

Abstract

Estimation of cultivated areas in small plot agriculture is an important issue for food security purposes in Africa. One way to obtain this information is through classical field surveys and aerial photography, which are both time and resource consuming. Multi-temporal high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems, as sources of reliable and overall information [1], [2], [3], [4], are an alternative solution, satisfying also the demand of continuous monitoring. Namely, for food security purposes, large scale agricultural products are requested at different times throughout the rain-fed crop season. Concerning the cultivated area, typically, a first product is required after the fields preparation; a second one prior to the harvesting time. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that i) the cultivated area product at start of crop season – today not available in food security services – is an excellent indicator to quantify the overall situation of the upcoming rain-fed crop season; ii) SAR systems – on the contrary to optical sensors – are suitable to map these areas due to their sensitivity to the soil roughness, a typical characteristic of the fields at this stage.