Separability of Dominant Crop Cultures in Southern Germany Using TerraSAR-X Data

Abstract

The research aims at differentiating dominant crop cultures in two test sites of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Southern Germany by creating crop signatures from radar backscatter values. It seeks to establish whether the crop signatures collected in one test site are comparable or transferable to another test site. The two test sites are located in different agro-ecological zones as described in the climate maps of the “Klimaatlas Baden-Wuerttemberg”. TerraSAR-X images (VV polarization) for the months of July and August 2010 were overlaid with crop fields’ ground truth data. As preprocessing steps, radiometric correction was carried out on the images in order to normalize the topographical effects. Classification of the crops was performed on a field scale, according to the mean and standard deviation of their backscatter values. From the results, potatoes could be uniquely differentiated from the cereals in the two different test sites for both the months of July and August 2010. Cereals (rapes, maize, barley, wheat and oats) had comparable backscatter values and their differentiation varied from one test site to another. The results’ accuracy obtained with a maximum kappa coefficient of 0.82 agrees with results of a similar research carried out in North East Germany.