Comparison between Dense L-Band and C-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Time Series for Crop Area Mapping over a NISAR Calibration-Validation Site

Crop area mapping is important for tracking agricultural production and supporting food security. Spaceborne approaches using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) now allow crop at moderate spatial temporal resolutions. Multi-frequency SAR data highly useful monitoring because backscatter response from vegetation canopies wavelength dependent. This study evaluates the utility of C-band Sentinel-1B (Sentinel-1) L-band ALOS-2 (PALSAR) data, collected during 2019 growing season, generating accurate active extent (crop vs. non-crop) classifications over an region in western Canada. Evaluations were performed against Agriculture Agri-Food Canada satellite-based Annual Cropland Inventory (ACI), open product that maps land cover across Canada’s land. Classifications coefficient variation (CV) approach, where optimal crop/non-crop delineating CV threshold (CVthr) selected according to Youden’s J-statistic. Results show agreed better with ACI when Sentinel-1 (83.5%) compared PALSAR (73.2%). Analysis performance by reveals PALSAR’s poorer can be attributed soybean, urban, grassland, pasture classes. also values situ wet biomass canola soybeans, showing crops lower (soybean) had correspondingly values.