Sentinel 1 GRD Entropy-Alpha Decomposition

[ellen]

Hi. Is it possible to create an entropy-alpha decomposition with only Sentinel-1 GRD data? Thanks

[ABraun]

no, polarimetry requires SLC data and Sentinel-1 does only have two polarizations (VV/VH) while all four are required.

[ellen]

Thank you!

[glemoine]

But you can do “partial” decomposition using VV and VH with the s1tbx. Needs SLC indeed. You can derive H, A and alpha.

[ABraun]

that’s true, but the quality of information is not really comparable

H-Alpha Plane Problems

technically, you can derive entropy and alpha, yes. But the results are not very useful, especially for cross polarization. It just doesn’t give all the information needed for polarimetry: Thus, HH-VV SAR is a suitable alternative to full-polarization SAR in certain cases. Meanwhile, the extraction performance of the other two dual-polarization SARs is badly degraded due to the lack of co-polarization. Therefore, HH-HV and HV-VV SARs cannot effectively extract the scattering mechanisms in the …

[glemoine]

That article is pre-Sentinel-1.

[ABraun]

I agree. I am also planning a tutorial on dual-pol S1 analyses where such points are addressed. Would be great to have C-band quad-pol data of similar resolution for a direct comparison.
Probably these ones will come closest: https://mdacorporation.com/geospatial/international/satellites/RADARSAT-2/sample-data/