Toward Estimating Wetland Water Level Changes Based on Hydrological Sensitivity Analysis of PALSAR Backscattering Coefficients over Different Vegetation Fields

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been successfully used to map wetland’s inundation extents and types of vegetation based on the fact that the SAR backscatter signal from the wetland is mainly controlled by the wetland vegetation type and water level changes. This study describes the relation between L-band PALSAR σ and seasonal water level changes obtained from Envisat altimetry over the island of Île Mbamou in the Congo Basin where two distinctly different vegetation types are found. We found positive correlations between σ and water level changes over the forested southern Île Mbamou whereas both positive and negative correlations were observed over the non-forested northern Île Mbamou depending on the amount of water level increase. Based on the analysis of σ sensitivity, we found that denser vegetation canopy leads to less sensitive σ variation with respect to the water level changes regardless of forested or non-forested canopy. Furthermore, we attempted to estimate water level changes which were then compared with the Envisat altimetry and InSAR results. Our results demonstrated a potential to generate two-dimensional maps of water level changes over the wetlands, and thus may have substantial synergy with the planned Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2015, 7 3154