1022 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 47, NO.
4, APRIL 2009
Estimation of Surface Roughness Parameter in
Intertidal Mudflat Using Airborne
Polarimetric SAR Data
Sang-Eun Park, Member, IEEE, Wooil M. Moon, Fellow, IEEE, and Duk-jin Kim, Member, IEEE
AbstractThe coastal zones of the Korean peninsula are well
known for their large tide ranges and vast expanse of inter-
tidal flats. In this paper, methods of extracting the roughness
of the scattering surface of intertidal mudflats from polari-
metric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data have been investi-
gated. The L-band NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratories airborne
SAR data, which were acquired in the intertidal zone during
PACRIM-II Korea campaign, were used to estimate the rough-
ness of intertidal mudflats. Surface roughness can be utilized
as a useful parameter to monitor the fishery activities in inter-
tidal flats as well as the changes in textural characteristics of
surface sediments. In order to retrieve roughness parameters,
such as the rms height and the correlation length, of intertidal
mudflats, three types of roughness inversion algorithms, based
on the Integral Equation Method (IEM), semiempirical, and
extended-Bragg models, have been investigated and developed.
The inversion algorithms based on the IEM and semiempirical
models can be applied to the dual-polarized SAR, while the
extended-Bragg model-based inversion approach is also applicable
to the fully polarimetric SAR observations. Results indicate the
fully polarimetric approach is more pertinent to monitor geophys-
ical parameters from space than the dual polarimetric approach,
even if it is possible to reduce the number of unknown surface
variables in the specific case of inversion problems.
Index TermsIntertidal flat, surface roughness, surface scatter-
ing model, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) polarimetry.
I. I NTRODUCTION
I NTERTIDAL flats are extensively developed along the
western and southern coasts of the Korean peninsula. It is
estimated to be approximately 2600 km2 , which corresponds
Manuscript received July 9, 2007; revised November 20, 2007, August 1,
2008, and September 24, 2008. Current version published March 27, 2009.
This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2007-
357-C00112) funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD), and supported
in part by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) Research and
Development Program CATER 2006-5203, by the Korea Ocean Research
and Development Institute (KORDI), by the Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation
and Planning (KISTEP), and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada under Discovery Grant (A-7400).
S.-E. Park is with the Institut d Electronique et de Tlcommunications de
Rennes (IETR), University of Rennes 1, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France (e-mail:
sangun.park@univ-rennes1.fr).
W. M. Moon is with the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2,
Canada, and also with the Research Institute of Oceanography, Seoul Na-
tional University, Seoul 151-747, Korea (e-mail: wmoon@cc.umanitoba.ca;
wmoon@snu.ac.kr).
D. Kim is with the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul
National University, Seoul 151-747, Korea (e-mail: djkim@snu.ac.kr).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2008.2008908
0196-2892/$25.00 2009 IEEE
to 2.4% of the South Korean territory. Tidal flats in Korea
have high commercial productivity potential of various fishery
products, and they also play the role of purifying pollutants
discharged from the land. Monitoring and mapping of intertidal
flats from in situ measurements in field are difficult, resulting
in only limited amounts of observation data. Remote-sensing
techniques are well known to be very effective in specific
information acquisition with the large spatial coverage and
nonintrusive measurement over the Earths surface.
Microwave remote sensing using synthetic aperture radar
(SAR) system has great potential for quantitative monitoring
and mapping of intertidal flats. Recently, polarimetric SAR
techniques came into the spotlight in the research field of
microwave remote sensing and future SAR systems, e.g.,
ALOS PALSAR, RADARSAT-II, and TerraSAR-X, have been
designed to measure various geophysical parameters in full
polarimetry. Various studies using the polarimetric SAR mea-
surements have been conducted to extract information on the
Earths surface characteristics. A number of studies have fo-
cused on the estimation of surface roughness and soil moisture
contents in bare soil and vegetated area on land. Empirical
regression models relating the backscattering coefficients to soil
moisture contents have been developed [1][3] and widely used
mainly due to their simplicity. However, it is still difficult to
use these relationships for radar signal inversion without time-
consuming calibration measurements. In addition, semiempir-
ical models have been developed [4][7]. They are based on
theoretical models and are further extended to accommodate
empirical observations to interpret experimental data. On the
other hand, theoretical relationships between backscattering
coefficients and surface parameters have been also developed.
In the microwave region of electromagnetic spectrum, common
approximate methods for modeling rough surface scattering are
the Kirchhoff approach and the small perturbation method [1],
[8], [9]. The IEM model [10], [11] has broadened the range
of validity of the theoretical scattering models. Recently, the
extended-Bragg model has been developed by using polarimet-
ric characteristics to estimate surface geophysical parameters
[12], [13].
Although intertidal areas are a geologically unique envi-
ronment and play an important roles for people in coastal
settlements, relatively few studies have been carried out in such
areas [14], [15]. This paper aims to review and develop effective
methods of extracting geophysical information of intertidal
mudflats including surface geometric characteristics, such as
PARK et al.: ESTIMATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS PARAMETER IN INTERTIDAL MUDFLAT
Fig. 1. (a) Location of Suncheon Bay study area. (b) NASA/JPL AIRSAR imaging swath across the study area.
the roughness of the scattering surface, from polarimetric SAR
data. Roughness of the surface sediments in intertidal flats
represents both biogenic and physical depositional character-
istics of sediments [16]. In addition, it can also be used as
a key parameter for describing the land-use characteristics
in intertidal flats such as fishery activities, which can cause
disturbances to sediment ripple features and biogenic marks
on surface sediments [17]. Theoretical models of microwave
scattering from rough surfaces, such as the IEM [9], the semi-
empirical [7], and the extended-Bragg [13] models, are applied
to estimate the surface characteristics of intertidal zones. The
L-band NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) airborne SAR
(AIRSAR) data were used in this paper to obtain polarimetric
characteristics of mudflat area in a chosen PACRIM-II site.
In Section II, the study area and description of the acquired
data sets used for this paper are discussed. In Section III,
the basic concepts of surface scattering models including the
semiempirical model, the IEM, and the extended-Bragg model
are briefly reviewed, and the inversion algorithms of surface
roughness parameters are presented. The roughness estima-
tion results of intertidal flats are discussed in Section IV.
Finally, summary and concluding remarks are presented in
Section V.
II. S TUDY A REA AND D ATA S ETS
The intertidal mudflat is a characteristic feature developed
along the gently dipping inland geology and extended sea
shorelines with high tide ranges, where large amount of sedi-
ments are usually available but strong wave action is generally
absent [16]. The current study area is located in Suncheon
Bay, on the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, as shown
in Fig. 1(a). Suncheon Bay is semienclosed by Yeosu and
Goheung peninsulas. The finer sediments are widely distributed
in the center, whereas the coarser sediments are dominated in
the northern side and at the mouth of the bay [18], [19]. The
1023
intertidal flat selected for this paper is a crescent shaped one
extending approximately 7 km long and 1.52 km seaward with
gentle slopes. The study area is not vegetated, except the lines
of bamboo poles, which were implanted artificially into the tidal
flat to zone the property boundaries of fish farms. This area is
well known as the leading cockle production area of the nation.
The surface material of the study site is reported to be composed
of mainly silt and clay [18].
The L-band fully polarimetric NASA/JPL AIRSAR data,
which were acquired during PACRIM-II Korea campaign in
2000, were used to investigate the microwave scattering charac-
teristics of intertidal flats [Fig. 1(b)]. The NASA/JPL AIRSAR
system flew over Goheung and Suncheon areas at the altitude
of 7889 m and at varied incidence angles between 35 and 55 .
Ground control points (GCPs) were acquired by the differen-
tial GPS positioning during the field surveys. The image was
wrapped to the map using rubber sheeting with collected GCPs.
The statistical properties of natural soil surfaces can be
described by the height probability distribution function and the
surface autocorrelation function (ACF) of the roughness values
measured. First, the height probability distribution function of
random rough surfaces is usually assumed to be the zero-mean
Gaussian function characterized by its rms heights s. Second,
the spatial correlation property of the surface can be described
by the surface autocorrelation R( ), such as
R( ) = z(x)z(x + ) /s2 (1)
where   denotes ensemble average. The surface correlation
length l, defined as the displacement at which R( ) is equal to
e1 , has been widely used to express horizontal roughness of
the surface. The in situ surface roughness parameters, s and l,
were obtained through field surveys at six different test sites in
the study site, which were located in the boxed area in Fig. 1(b).
Two complementary methods, the photogrammetry and mesh-
board profiler [20], [21], were used to measure roughness
1024 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 47, NO. 4, APRIL 2009
TABLE I
SURFACE ROUGHNESS AND SOIL MOISTURE
CONTENTS OF THE STUDY AREA
parameters as summarized in Table I. The measured rms surface
height values range from 0.2 to 0.8 cm.
The backscattered signal from natural soil surfaces also
depends on the dielectric properties of the scattering surface,
which are expressed by complex dielectric constant r . The
real component (r ) is referred to as the permittivity of the
material, whereas the imaginary part (r ) is referred to as
the dielectric loss factor of the material. The dielectric proper-
ties of sediments are mostly related to volumetric soil moisture
contents (mV ). Several empirical and theoretical models have
been developed in literature to relate the dielectric constant
of the surface material to that of its constituents [22], [23].
The volumetric moisture content was measured by using the
Time Domain Reflectometry instrument and gravimetric wa-
ter content measurements [12]. Table I shows the measured
volumetric moisture contents represented in the decimal frac-
tions for each test site in the study area. The volumetric
moisture content represents the fraction of the total volume
of soil that is occupied by the water contained in the soil.
Therefore, high values of mV over the study area indicate that
where pp denotes the polarization state (pp = V V or HH),
fHH = 2rH / cos , fV V = 2rV / cos , and
FHH (kx , 0)+ FHH (kx , 0)

2 sin2 (1+ rH )2 1 r r sin2 r cos2
= 1 +
cos r 2r cos2
(4)
FV V (kx , 0) + FV V (kx , 0)

2 sin2 (1+ rV )2 1 r r sin2 r cos2
= 1 + .
cos r 2r cos2
(5)
In the above equations, is the incidence angle, k is the
free-space radar wavenumber (kz = k cos and kx = k sin ),
s is the surface rms height, rH and rV are the horizontal
and vertically polarized Fresnel reflection coefficients [11], r
and r are the relative permittivity and permeability of the
scattering surface, and W (j) (k) is the Fourier transform of the
jth power of the surface ACF.
In the theoretical scattering models including IEM, an ade-
quate mathematical function for the autocorrelation R( ) of the
target surface is necessary for obtaining accurate backscattering
signatures. Different types of ACFs have been proposed in order
to express the experimental autocorrelation. The commonly
used surface ACFs are either Gaussian or exponential functions
[8]. Some studies have reported that the measured soil surfaces
have the ACF similar to an exponential function [6]. However,
due to discontinuity in the gradient at the origin, an exponential
ACF makes it difficult to describe higher order surface proper-
ties. Recently, an ACF derived from a generalized power law
spectrum has been proposed to describe the variations between
the Gaussian and the exponential correlation functions [24],
which is given by



most parts of the pores of the mudflats are filled with saline
n2 1 2bn n1 2bn
water. R( ) = 2 (n 1) Kn1 (6)
an l an l

where an = (n 0.5)/(n) and bn is determined by

III. P OLARIMETRIC S URFACE S CATTERING M ODELS AND
 n1 
I NVERSION OF S URFACE R OUGHNESS P ARAMETERS 2bn 2bn

Kn1 = 2n2 (n 1) e1 (7)
A. Models for Co- and Cross-Polarization an an
Backscattering Coefficients
where is the Gamma function and K is the Bessel function of
The horizontal and vertical polarized single backscattering imaginary argument. The ACF becomes exponential if n = 1.5
coefficient from the IEM model [10], [11] is given by and Gaussian when n goes to infinite. In this paper, this type of
ACF will be used for the characterization of surface correlation

k2    j 2 W (j) (2k sin , 0) properties of intertidal flats. Most of measured ACFs acquired
0
pp = exp 2kz s
2 2
s2j Ipp 
from the test sites are characterized by (6) with the power index
2 j=1
j!
of 2.1, as shown in Fig. 2(a). However, Fig. 2(b) shows that
(2) measured ACF from the test site S2 is close to the exponential
with ACF (n = 1.5). Nonetheless, since rms slope does not exist
for the power index of n 2 [24], the ACF of tidal flats was
  assumed to be a generalized power law ACF with the power
IPj P = (2kz )j fP P exp kz2 s2
index of 2.1, for the applications in this paper.
1 j  A semiempirical polarimetric backscattering model has been
+ kz [FP P (kx , 0) + FP P (kx , 0)] (3)
2 developed for randomly rough bare soil surfaces in [6] and
PARK et al.: ESTIMATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS PARAMETER IN INTERTIDAL MUDFLAT 1025

conjugate transpose. For a flat bare surface, which can be

characterized by Bragg scattering, [T ] can be written as

C1 C2 0
[T ] = As C2 2C3 0 (12)
0 0 0

where C1 = |Bs + BP |2 , C2 = (BS + BP )(BS BP ) , and

C3 = 1/2|Bs BP |2 are the Bragg scattering coefficients [1],
[12], and As is the backscattering amplitude containing the
information about the roughness condition of the surface [1],
[12]. If the coherency matrix contains Bragg scatter terms
occurring on a surface perturbed by a distribution of slope-
induced changes in the orientation angle , then averaged
Fig. 2. Comparison of measured surface autocorrelation with the Gaussian, coherency matrix over the orientation angle distribution p()
exponential, and power law ACFs for test sites (a) S6 and (b) S2. can be written as

updated in [7]. According to this formulation, the cross- [T ] = [UR ][T ]][UR ]T p()d (13)
polarized backscattering coefficient and co- and cross-polarized
backscatter ratios can be written as follow: where the rotational transformation matrix [UR ] is defined as


  1 0 0
0
HV = 0.11(mV )0.7 (cos )2.2 1 exp 0.32(ks)1.8 (8)
[UR ] 0 cos 2 sin 2 . (14)
 0.35m0.65 0 sin 2 cos 2
0
HH V  
=1 exp 0.4(ks)1.4 (9)
0
V V 90 This coherency matrix represents the backscatter for fully
0
HV s 1.2   polarimetric microwave returns from scattering surfaces with
0 = 0.1 + sin 1.3 1 exp 0.9(ks)0.8 (10) reflection symmetry. The distribution of orientation angles p()
V V l
describes the effects of slopes and determines both the polari-
where mV is the volumetric soil moisture content. According to metric coherence and the level of cross-polarized power. p()
the semiempirical model, the cross-polarization backscattering can be modeled by a Gaussian distribution function [13], and
coefficient can be one of the important parameters for the the consequential coherency matrix has the form of
estimation of surface roughness. Rough surface acts as highly
C2 e2
2
C1 0
depolarizing factor upon incidence on scattering targets and [T ] = As C2 e2 C3 [1 + e8 ] (15)
2 2
0
thus, generates cross-polarized backscattering. 0 0 C3 [1 e 8 2
]

where is the standard deviation of the orientation angle

B. Modeling of Fully Polarimetric Descriptors
Surface roughness estimation using polarimetric SAR data
have been focused on the use of co- and cross-polarization
backscattered coefficients. Recent studies have investigated the
potential of the correlation coefficient between copolarized
channels (i.e., polarization coherence |ppqq |) as one of the
surface roughness discriminator [12], [13], [25]. The physical
phenomenon inferred by the underlying sensitivity of |ppqq | to
the surface roughness is the depolarization of electromagnetic
waves backscattered by a rough surface. The extended-Bragg
model was developed considering the cross-polarization scat-
tering and depolarization effects [12], [13].
The correlation properties of natural scatterers are described
by the polarimetric coherency matrix [T ], which contain the
second-order moments of the scattering process [26] as

 For a given frequency and polarization state of an incident
[T ] = kP kPT (11)
where kp = 1/ 2[ SHH + SV V SHH SV V 2SHV ]T is
the scattering vector in the Pauli basis [26], Spq is the scatter-
ing element in pq polarizations, and T denotes the complex
distribution. The extended-Bragg model provides a theoretical
explanation of above observations on the sensitivity relation
between polarization coherence and surface roughness. In par-
ticular, the circular polarization RRLL coherence |RRLL | has
been found extremely sensitive to surface roughness [13], [25].
Following the extended-Bragg model, the polarimetric coher-
ence |RRLL | can be expressed as a function of the standard
deviation of the orientation angle distribution of facets [13],
[27], such as
T22 T33
|RRLL | = = exp(8 2 ). (16)
T22 + T33
C. Development of Inversion Algorithm for
Roughness Estimation
wave, the returned backscattered signal from ground targets de-
pends on several state variables, such as surface dielectric con-
stants, surface height distribution represented as s, and surface
autocorrelation represented as l. Consequently, fully polarimet-
ric measurements are necessary to obtain reliable information
1026 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 47, NO. 4, APRIL 2009

Fig. 3. Dependence of simulated (a) HH- and VV-polarized backscattering coefficients calculated from the IEM, (b) cross-pol backscattering coefficient and
cross-pol ratio from the semiempirical model, and (c) |SHH + SV V |2 and |RRLL | from the extended-Bragg model on volumetric moisture contents.

on surface properties from SAR observations to avoid the

underdetermined inversion problem. Although most of newly
developed spaceborne SAR systems (e.g., ENVISAT ASAR,
ALOS PALSAR, RADARSAT-2, and TerraSAR-X) are able
to offer multi- and fully polarization capabilities, operational
polarimetric acquisition modes often remain partially polarized.
Therefore, it is of special interest for parameter inversion appli-
cations to reduce the number of unknown surface variables.
Since the measured volumetric moisture contents in current
study area represent general porosity values, particularly, for
muddy soils [16], surface sediments can be assumed to be fully
saturated with water throughout intertidal mudflat areas. Previ-
ous studies also reported high moisture contents in the intertidal
flat area [15]. Therefore, the intertidal mudflat is an ideal study
site for the reduction of surface variables. The effect of the
dielectric constant on backscatter signals can thus be neglected
in the specific case of the intertidal mudflats. Consequently,
the surface roughness parameters can be estimated from two
independent polarization observations.
0
Fig. 3(a) shows the simulated dependence of HH and V0 V
on volumetric moisture contents with saline water at incidence
angle of 40 . Note that an intertidal area can be considered as
bare soil, but it is different from the electromagnetic scatter-
ing point of view because salt in water affects its dielectric
properties. In general, the real part of the dielectric constant
r slightly decreases, whereas the imaginary part r highly
grows with increase of salinity [28]. In this paper, we used the
empirical relationship between volumetric water contents and
complex dielectric constants proposed in [28] for the specific
salinity of 40 as an input parameter for the backscattering
simulation in the tidal flat areas. According to the IEM model,
0 Fig. 4. Dependence of (a) HH- and VV-polarized backscattering coefficients
the copolarization backscattering coefficients HH and V0 V calculated from the IEM and (b) |RRLL | and |SHH + SV V |2 from the
are not sensitive to differences in moisture contents in wet soil, extended-Bragg model on ks and kl values for mV = 0.5 at the incidence
as shown in Fig. 3(a). The rms height and the correlation length angle of 40 .
relative to wavelength, ks and kl, can be estimated from the
two roughness parameters can be obtained with the following
inversion of the IEM model with constant r as
optimization procedure:
  0   0  
ks HH ks
= F 1 HH (17) min norm F . (18)
kl V0 V V0 V kl
where the function F is given by (2). Fig. 4(a) shows sensitivity On the other hand, the roughness parameters can be es-
of copolarization backscattering coefficients calculated from timated from the cross-polarization backscattering coefficient
the IEM model on roughness parameters at the incidence angle and co- and cross-polarization ratios based on the semiempiri-
of 40 and mV = 0.5 for the salinity of 40. Estimates of the cal model. In this case, it is not straightforward to conclude the
PARK et al.: ESTIMATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS PARAMETER IN INTERTIDAL MUDFLAT 1027

distinct insensitivity of backscattering coefficients to moisture

contents for wet soils, as shown in Fig. 3(b). Nonetheless,
ks values can be obtained from (8) by fixing the value of
mV . In practice, we have used mV = 0.5 for computing ks.
Then, the horizontal roughness kl can be calculated directly
from the cross-polarization ratio using (10). It should be noted
that the semiempirical model is based on the volumetric mois-
ture contents of the nonsaline soil surface. Therefore, it might
have limited applicability in obtaining geophysical parameters
of intertidal flats.
In addition, the roughness parameters can be estimated using
an approach based on the extended-Bragg model. Fig. 3(c)
shows the sensitivity of T11 component of the coherency ma-
trix, i.e., |SHH + SV V |2 [26] to volumetric moisture contents
at an incidence angle of 40 . As in the case of the IEM, copo-
larization response of the coherency matrix |SHH + SV V |2
is not sensitive to differences in moisture contents in the
intertidal mudflats saturated with saline water. Furthermore,
one can expect the increased measurement sensitivity to sur-
face roughness by using the circular-polarization coherence
Fig. 5. Estimated (a) ks and (b) kl values from HH- and VV-polarized
|RRLL |, which is insensitive to moisture contents, as shown backscattering coefficients using the IEM model.
in Fig. 3(c). The value of |RRLL | will be determined by the
standard deviation of the orientation angle distribution p() the extended-Bragg model on the roughness parameters with an
within the SAR resolution cell as in (16). Schuler et al. [13] incidence angle of 40 and mV = 0.5 for the salinity of 40.
proposed a theoretical relationship between and the surface Two-dimensional inversions of (18) and (22) have been
rms slope m as performed by using the lookup table (LUT) approach. Prede-
fined LUTs, generated by using the IEM and extended-Bragg
m
= . (19) models, allow reducing of the large computing requirements
sin in iterative inversion algorithms. The pair of measured SAR
Further details on the derivation of this relationship are given in backscattering signature and simulated LUTs with the best
[12, Ch. IV]. agreement represents the most appropriate values for roughness
The rms slope m is a measure of the mean slope on the parameters.
rough surface and can be obtained by taking the average of
the gradient of the surface height. Unlike the exponential ACF, IV. R ESULTS
the ACF derived from a generalized power law spectrum (6)
used in this paper has the advantage of differentiability at the The L-band fully polarimetric AIRSAR data acquired in
origin. The rms slope of the ACF, obtained from the second 2000 as a part of PACRIM-II Korea campaign over the Sun-
derivative at the origin [24], is given by cheon Bay test site were processed to estimate the roughness
and also examine the proposed roughness estimation methods.

2 bn s In order to reduce the speckle problem, Lees polarimetric
m= . (20) SAR speckle filter [29], utilizing a multiplicative noise model
(n 2) an l
and seven-by-seven directional windows, was applied to the
AIRSAR data before the inversion processing procedure. We
Substituting (19) and (20) into (16), a relationship between the
excluded pixels over bamboo poles in mudflat as well as land
circular-polarization coherence and the surface roughness can
and ocean areas from the inversion process.
be derived as
Fig. 5 shows the results of the roughness estimation from
  copolarized backscattering coefficients using the IEM model
2b2n s2
|RRLL | = exp 8 . (21) inversion. Fig. 6 is the plot of estimated roughness parameters
(n 2)a2n l2 sin2
obtained from the cross-polarized backscattering coefficient
According to the extended-Bragg scattering model, the rms and cross-polarization ratio using the semiempirical model
height and the correlation length can be obtained from polar- inversion. Fig. 7 shows roughness parameters estimated from
ization measurements |RRLL | and |SHH + SV V |2 such as polarimetric descriptors |RRLL | and |SHH + SV V |2 using
extended-Bragg model. The ks values obtained by the IEM and



ks |RRLL | the extended-Bragg models are very similar to each other and
= G1 (22)
kl |SHH + SV V |2 they have moderate values over most parts of the tidal flat areas.
On the other hand, the ks values by the semiempirical model
where the function G is given by (15) and (21). Fig. 4(b) shows are high in the northwestern part of the tidal flat. The kl values
the sensitivity of |SHH + SV V |2 and |RRLL | calculated from obtained by the IEM model are very high, while those by the
1028
Fig. 6. Estimated (a) ks and (b) kl values from cross-pol backscattering
coefficient and cross-pol ratios using the semiempirical model.
Fig. 7. Estimated (a) ks and (b) kl values from |RRLL | and |SHH +
SV V |2 using the extended-Bragg model.
semiempirical model are very low in most parts of the tidal
flat areas. The kl values obtained by the extended-Bragg model
reveal moderate values over most part of the areas.
Roughness parameters estimated from AIRSAR observations
are also compared to those measured in situ. Figs. 8 and 9
show a comparison of the estimated and measured values of
ks and kl parameters, respectively. The ks values, both from
copolarization backscattering coefficients using the IEM model
and from |RRLL | and |SHH + SV V |2 using the extended-
Bragg model, are in agreement with those in situ measurements,
as shown in Fig. 8. The normalized rms errors for ks values
estimated by the IEM and the extended-Bragg models are
0.03, as shown in Table II. On the other hand, the roughness
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 47, NO. 4, APRIL 2009
inversion based on the semiempirical model overestimates the
ks values, up to 0.23. For the kl estimation, the IEM and the
semiempirical models yield incongruent results with the in situ
measurements, as shown in Fig. 9, while the extended-Bragg
model successfully estimates kl values.
In order to evaluate the influence of changes in the moisture
contents on the inversion performance, the roughness inversion
algorithm was reprocessed by superseding the fixed moisture
content mV = 0.5 with mV = 0.4. The complex dielectric con-
stant for the salinity of 40 and the moisture content of mV =
0.4 was also obtained from the empirical relationship given in
[28], as stated in the previous section. It appears that changes in
the moisture contents hardly affect the estimation of roughness
parameters in the specific intertidal mudflat areas as shown
in Table III. Consequently, the inversion technique presented
in the above section can be used for the estimation of the
roughness parameters, even when there is a slight evaporation
of the remnant water in the intertidal mudflats. However, it
should be noted that changes in the dielectric constant affect
the inversion performance under a certain circumstance where
the evaporation dramatically changes the moisture contents ac-
cordingly with the exposure time in intertidal flats. In this case,
the inverse mapping process requires at least three independent
polarimetric observations.
Furthermore, the influence of the ACF, a free parameter in
the calculation of LUT determined before the procedure, on
the inversion performance has been evaluated by comparing the
inversion results based on the generalized power-law ACF with
those based on the Gaussian ACF. Table IV shows the inversion
results of roughness parameters based on the Gaussian ACF.
The rms error remains the same in the case of the semiempirical
model because it does not depend on types of ACF. However,
the use of inappropriate ACF in the roughness parameter in-
version increases the rms error significantly in both cases of
the IEM and the extended-Bragg models. We did not include
the roughness inversion performance based on the exponential
ACF because of it could be applicable only to the case of the
IEM inversion. Nonetheless, the IEM inversion results based
on the exponential ACF revealed almost the same performance
as that of the case of the power-law ACF.
The estimated roughness values have a certain tendency
across intertidal mudflats. Fig. 10 shows the variations of
roughness values for a line transecting tidal flats. Both ks and
kl values increase at the beginning and at the end of fishery
areas, but decrease in the vicinity of land and open ocean.
Fishery activities tend to disturb the surface sediment textures
and consequentially affect the surface roughness of intertidal
flats. In addition, the inverted ks and kl values show that they
increase as the estimation becomes closer to land. Although
the percentage of the finer sediments, such as silt and clay,
is high in most intertidal zones of Suncheon Bay, one can
expect that rather coarser sediment distribution near lands or
estuaries is prevalent [18]. Thus, the roughness parameters
may be associated with the sediment textures except in the
area used for cockle production. However, further verification
on the relationship between roughness parameters and sed-
iment textures should be investigated through future in situ
measurements.
PARK et al.: ESTIMATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS PARAMETER IN INTERTIDAL MUDFLAT 1029

Fig. 8. Comparison between in situ measured ks values and those estimated from (a) HH- and VV-polarized backscattering coefficients using the IEM model,
(b) cross-pol backscattering coefficient and cross-pol ratio using the semiempirical model, and (c) |RRLL | and |SHH + SV V |2 using the extended-Bragg
model.

Fig. 9. Comparison between in situ measured kl values and those estimated from (a) HH- and VV-polarized backscattering coefficients using the IEM model,
(b) cross-pol backscattering coefficient and cross-pol ratio using the semiempirical model, and (c) |RRLL | and |SHH + SV V |2 using the extended-Bragg
model.
TABLE II
RMS ERROR OF THE ESTIMATED ROUGHNESS
PARAMETERS WITH mV = 0.5

TABLE III
RMS ERROR OF THE ESTIMATED ROUGHNESS
PARAMETERS WITH mV = 0.4

Fig. 10. Changes in roughness values across intertidal mudflats. Fishery areas
in the test site are used mostly for cockle production.

Korean peninsula, using L-band NASA/JPL AIRSAR data. The

TABLE IV
RMS ERROR OF THE ESTIMATED ROUGHNESS PARAMETERS
BASED ON THE GAUSSIAN ACF WITH mV = 0.5
V. C ONCLUSION
SAR polarimetry was investigated for estimating the rough-
ness characteristics of intertidal flats. Studies have been con-
ducted for intertidal mudflats in the southern coast of the
study area in the intertidal zone is widely used for cockle
production, and the land-use patterns, for example, these coastal
aqua-cultural farming activities, can be characterized by the
surface roughness properties. In order to retrieve roughness
parameters in the intertidal mudflats, three types of roughness
inversion algorithms, based on the IEM, the semiempirical, and
the extended-Bragg models, were developed and tested. Partic-
ularly, this paper aimed to find the pertinent combination of po-
larization measurements as well as fully polarimetric scattering
models instead of ameliorating surface scattering models. The
inversion algorithms based on the IEM and the semiempirical
models can be applied to the dual-polarized SAR data, while
the extended-Bragg model-based inversion approach is also
applicable to the fully polarimetric SAR observation.
The IEM model was applied successfully to obtain the rms
height. However, we failed to estimate the correlation length
1030 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 47, NO. 4, APRIL 2009
from the IEM model probably due to the low sensitivity of
copolarization backscattering coefficients to the variations of
the correlation length. In addition, the semiempirical model
turned out to be inappropriate for estimating roughness parame-
ters of the intertidal mudflats because it is based on the moisture
content of nonsaline soil. On the other hand, surface roughness
parameters extracted from the circular-polarization coherence
and the copolarization element in the coherency matrix were
closest to those obtained from the in situ field measurements.
The fully polarimetric approach is more pertinent for mon-
itoring of geophysical parameters from space than the dual
polarimetric approach even if it is possible to reduce the number
of unknown surface variables in the specific case of inversion
problems. Presently, partial or dual polarization SAR mode
is the predominant observation mode in most currently avail-
able polarimetric spaceborne radar satellites. Therefore, to
modify the semiempirical model for saline soil surfaces can
be one of the effective alternatives for better operational ap-
plication of the SAR remote sensing for tidal flats investiga-
tion. Examining the effect of salinity on the moisture contents
through further elaborate in-site measurements can improve the
applicability of the dual-polarization measurements to natural
surfaces, which will be addressed in a future work. This is our
ongoing research plan to derive surface characteristics of tidal
flats utilizing fully polarimetric SAR data sets. Recent changes
in various coastal wetlands will be continually monitored using
available newly developed spaceborne SAR systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank H.-S. Lee, J.-E. Kim, and
J.-S. Kim who participated in ground-truth field surveys. The
authors sincerely thank the former NASA (JPL) AIRSAR group
and the Korean AIRSAR team for active participation in the
AIRSAR data acquisition during the PACRIM-II campaign.
The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers
for their constructive comments. The PACRIM-II AIRSAR
experiment was funded by the SNU Interdisciplinary Grant,
NSERC of Canada (Operating and Equipment Grants) and
in part by the Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2000-
015-DP0432), and research contract of the Korea Aerospace
Research Institute (KARI). The polarimetric AIRSAR data
used in this paper were acquired during the PACRIM-II, and
were processed and provided by NASA/JPL.
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PARK et al.: ESTIMATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS PARAMETER IN INTERTIDAL MUDFLAT 1031

Sang-Eun Park (S05M07) received the B.S. and Duk-jin Kim (S03M05) received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in geophysics and the Ph.D. degree M.S. degrees in geophysics, and the Ph.D. degree
in radar remote sensing and geophysics from Seoul in radar remote sensing and geophysics from Seoul
National University, Seoul, Korea, in 2000, 2002, National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1999, 2001,
and 2007, respectively. and 2005, respectively.
Since 2007, he has been with the Radar Polarime- From February 2006 to July 2007, he was a Post-
try Remote Sensing Group, University of Rennes 1, doctoral Researcher with the University of Michigan,
Rennes, France, as a postdoctoral fellow, working Ann Arbor. From July 2007 to August 2008, he was
on radar polarimetry and polarimetric interferometry. a Senior Researcher with the Remote Sensing Divi-
His research interests include polarimetric synthetic sion, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Daejeon,
aperture radar classification, forward and inverse Korea. He is currently an Assistant Professor with
modeling of microwave vegetation and surface backscattering, and investiga- the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University.
tion of multisource data integration methodology. His research interests include microwave remote sensing of winds, ocean
waves, currents, and internal waves, using various systems including along-
track interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR), polarimetric SAR, as well
as conventional SAR systems.
Wooil M. Moon (M71SM86F03) received the
B.ASc. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in
1970, the M.Sc. degree from Columbia University,
New York, in 1972, and the Ph.D. degree in geo-
physics from the University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1976.
In 1979, he joined the Faculty of Science, Uni-
versity of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, where
he is currently a Professor of geophysics and a
University Senior Scholar. He was invited by Seoul
National University in 1998, and has maintained a satellite geophysics labo-
ratory in Seoul and supervised graduate students. He has participated in the
SEASAT (Altimeter) research as a part of the NASA Geodynamics program
and has worked as a Principal Investigator for numerous science verification
projects including JERS-1, RADARSAT-1, NASA (JPL) AIRSAR, ENVISAT,
ALOS, TerraSAR-X, and now RADARSAT-2. His research interests include
radar altimetry, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), polarimetric SAR theory and
applications, and spatial data fusion and spatial reasoning.
Dr. Moon is a member of the American Geophysical Union, Canadian Geo-
physical Union (CGU), American Institute of Physics, Canadian Aeronautics
and Space Institute, Korean Remote Sensing Society, Canadian Association of
Physicists, Geological Society of Korea, and Society of Exploration Geophysi-
cists (USA). He has also been an active member of the International Union of
Geodesy and Geophysics. He is an elected Founding Member of CGU and a
Fellow of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology.