ESTIMATION OF SEAWATER LEVEL ON SEA FARMS USING L-BAND RADAR INTERFEROMETRY

Satellite radar interferometry data shows a strong coherent signal on oyster sea farms where artificial structures installed on the bottom. We obtained 21 highly coherent interferograms from eleven JERS-1 SAR data sets despite of large orbital baseline (~2 km) or large temporal baseline (~l year). The phases observed in sea farms are probably induced by double bouncing on sea surface, and consequently reveal a tide height variation. To restore the absolute sea level changes we counted the number of wrapping by exploiting the intensity of backscattering. Backscattering intensity is closely correlated with the change in water surface height, while interferometry gives the detailed variation within the limit of 2$\pi$ (or 15.3 cm). Comparing the radar measurements with the tide gauge records yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.96 and an ms error of 6.0 cm. The results demostrate that radar interferometry is promising to measure sea level.