Sentinel-1 SAR data for mapping agricultural crops not dominated by volume scattering

a C-band SAR classification algorithm mapping agricultural crops dominated/non-dominated by volume scattering is described and assessed. The algorithm exploits cross-polarized SAR data and it is a part of the SMOSAR algorithm (“Soil MOisture retrieval from multi-temporal SAR data”) developed in view of the forthcoming Sentinel-1 data. The results indicate that the selected method is fairly robust versus changes of site location and in average it is expected to achieve an overall accuracy equal or better than 80%.