DISCRIMINATION OF EARLY MATURING PADDY RICE CROPS USING MULTI-TEMPORAL SAR IMAGES

This study was begun to classify the paddy fields by the rice varieties and to monitor the temporal change in rice growth using SAR backscatter coefficients $({\sigma}^{circ})$. For nine fine-beam mode images of Radarsat-1 SAR, a growing period time-series of backscatter coefficients was set up from April to October in 2005, and was compared with the field-measured rice growth parameters such as LAI (leaf area index), plant height, fresh and dry biomass, and water content in grain and plant for 45 parcels in Dangjin-gun, Chungcheongnam Province, South Korea. The average backscatter coefficients for early-maturing rice varieties (13 parcels) were ranged from -18.17dB to -6.06dB and were lower than for medium-late maturing rice varieties during most of the growing season. At around the heading stage (July 30) for early-maturing rice, both rice crops showed the highest backscatter coefficient values and the difference was the greatest before harvesting early-maturing rice. The temporal difference in backscatter coefficients between rice varieties was expected to play a key role to identify early-maturing rice fields. On the other hand, comparison with field-measured rice growth parameters showed that the backscatter coefficients decreased or stayed on the plateau after heading stage even though the growth of rice canopy advanced.