Snow depth and snow water equivalent retrieval using X-band PolInSAR data.

Monitoring the dynamics of snow and glaciers in the Indian Himalaya has always attracted the attention of the remote sensing community. The snow water equivalent (SWE) represents the amount of water contained in the snowpack, and it is a product of snow depth (SD) and snow density ( ρ s ). The estimation of SD at high spatial and temporal resolution is still a challenge, especially in rugged mountainous terrain, like the Himalayas. In this paper, bistatic TerraSAR-X quad-polarization data is used to retrieve the SD using the Polarimetric SAR Interferometry (PolInSAR) coherences. The PolInSAR coherence at hv polarization shows a linear relationship with SD, which is verified with the field data. This relationship is utilized for the retrieval of SD using the proposed algorithm. Spatially variable ρ s is used to retrieve the SWE. The coefficient of determination ( R 2 ) values of the retrieved SD on 8 January 2016 and 19 January 2016 are 0.62 and 0.80, respectively. Likewise, it is 0.61 and 0.72 for retrieved SWE. The root mean square error (RMSE) in SD on 8 January 2016 and 19 January 2016 are 7.00 cm and 5.48 cm, respectively; for SWE, it is 2.02 cm and 1.48 cm, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]