Floodplain wetlands in the Paraná River basin (Argentina): contribution of polarimetric L-Band data for monitoring wetland types

FRANCO, MARIANO; MORANDEIRA, NATALIA SOLEDAD; GRINGS, FRANCISCO MATÍAS; ROJAS BARRIOS, ADRIANA

Tokio

Encuentro; FY2022 The Joint PI Meeting of JAXA Earth Observation Missions; 2022

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

The presentation aims to discuss the contribution of polarimetric L-Band ALOS/PALSAR-2 satellite data for monitoring wetland types in the Parana River floodplain. The study was conducted in the Ramsar site Paraná River Delta, where the dominant wetland cover types are forests, marshes and shallow lakes. In addition, wetland subtypes can be identified according to their geomorphological position. We obtained 264 polygon samples in these two landscape units in the Ramsar site. We used one of the two full parametric ALOS PALSAR-2 scenes that were available for the area. The scene was calibrated and the covariance Matrix was extracted, and then polarimetric features were extracted for each of the polygon samples. We analyzed the backscattering for the single polarization channels HH, HV and VV; the components of the Cloude-Pottier H Alpha decomposition; the contribution of the interaction mechanisms from the Freeman-Durden decomposition; and other polarimetric features such as the copol correlation, the copol phase difference and the copol channels ratio, the geometric intensity, the pedestal height and the conformity factor. Most of the polarimetric features differed between the main Wetland cover types, but for the discrimination of wetland subtypes, we would need more ALOS/PALSAR-2 imagery or satellite data from other SAR or optical sensors. Future steps include classifications based on these polarimetric features and comparisons between scenes acquired at contrasting hydrometric levels of the Paraná River with recent imagery from ALOS/PALSAR-2 or SAOCOM.