Study on the polarimetric characteristics of the Lop Nur arid area using PolSAR data

The quantitative study of the arid Lop Nur lake basin is significant to investigate the environmental changes in the arid area of northwestern China and extremely arid areas of Eurasia in general. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, with its penetration capability and advantages for studying geological phenomena on a large spatial scale, is very suitable for analyzing the subsurface of the Lop Nur area. Based on the full polarimetric ALOS PALSAR data and field investigation, it was found that the two-layer scattering mechanism of the dry sediments is very special and complex. The scattering mechanism in the bright strips is more complex than that in the gray strips according to the co-polarization correlation analysis. The experimental results show that the Cloude–Pottier decomposition method is more appropriate for this area. Moreover, the polarimetric characteristics and Cloude-Pottier decomposition results are very important for the study of the past climatic change in Lop Nur area. In conclusion, full polarimetric SAR data and target decomposition theory provide a new technique for obtaining information and quantitatively studying the subsurface characteristics of arid areas. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI. [DOI: 10.1117/1.JRS.8.083681]