Application of Envisat Asar Data for Alpine Land Use Classification

The advantage of ENVISAT ASAR over its predecessors, namely ERS-1 and ERS-2, as a land observation tool resides in its multiple polarization and multi-look angle capabilities. As a radar sensor the ASAR backscattering coefficient is sensitive to the moisture content of the scattering media and its geometrical properties (i.e. size, shape, roughness, and orientation). From the quantitative analysis of the sigma0 in this work, it can be generally said that ENVISAT ASAR multiple polarization products contain useful information for land cover mapping. An RGB composite of the multiple polarisation products alone leads to very good visual interpretation of the land cover categories.