Airborne C-band SAR measurements of wet snow-covered areas

Using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data at C-band, the optimum polarization and range incidence angles for the classification of land covers found in the James Bay area, P.Q., Canada-open areas, lakes ice, and forests, all covered with wet snow-have been examined. The separability between classes shows that they can be classified by a single polarization. For theta < 30 degrees, the overall classification accuracies were 97.1, 98, and 90.8% from HH-, cross, and VV-polarizations alone, respectively. They were greater than 99% for all polarizations at theta > 30 degrees. However, the polarimetric parameters were not suitable for classification.