DETERMINATION OF MAIN SOIL PROPERTIES USING SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR.

The objective of this study was to examine the contribution of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images in determining and monitoring some of the main soil properties. In this research, seven SAR images (2 of RADARSAT-1 and 5 of ENVISAT ASAR) were gathered between April and October 2006. An ASTER image of May 2006 that belonged to the same area was also used as an ancillary data. Menemen (Izmir) Plain which covers about 400 km2 of the western part of the Gediz Basin in the west of Turkey was chosen as the area of study. The research was set out to investigate the relationships among some of the soil properties, such as, texture, organic matter, soil salinity, pH and lime content, which are believed to affect backscattering directly. The sigmanought and betanought values of RADARSAT-1 and ENVISAT-ASAR images were calculated in order determine the correlation between the soil properties and radar backscatter. The correlations between soil moisture content, soil texture and backscattering of all SAR images were found significant (r=0.85-0.91). However, no statistically significant relationships were found between backscatter values and organic matter, pH, salt and lime contents of the soils at the test points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]