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Urban areas

Identified coherent scatterers at different polarizations: HH in red, VV in blue, HV in green displayed on the SAR image. (Test site: Dresden, Germany)

One of the most appealing new Pol-InSAR applications recently proposed by the Institute is the identification and characterization of point-like scatterers - so called coherent scatterers - in urban environments. Coherent scatterers are deterministic scatterers located at different heights within the "urban volume" and can be identified by using spectral correlation of individual or multiple images. Accordingly, their localization can be performed with a limited number of SAR observations, acquired with a short or even without temporal baseline. The strong polarimetric behavior of point-scatterers makes polarimetric observation diversity important for achieving large coherent scatterer’s densities.

After localization, polarimetry allows further the identification/description of scatterers in terms of canonical scattering processes (e.g. dihedral-, surface-, dipole-like) and enables the characterization of geometric and dielectric properties. There is a wide spectrum of potential applications for coherent scatterers ranging from polarimetric/interferometric calibration, urban DEM generation to information extraction from individual scatterers and change monitoring.