Monitoring summer crops using TerraSAR-X and in situ multitemporal data in Northern Italy

Timely information about agricultural crops (e.g. typology, phenology, productivity, health) is crucial for proper agronomic planning and management by farmers and public administrations. Earth Observation (EO) data have proved to be very effective for monitoring crops and their intra-annual cycles, especially through the integration of optical and microwave data [1-3]. SAR data at different frequencies have been used for retrieving biophysical parameters pertinent to the crops [4-8], e.g. for the estimation of their status of growth, and X-band data in particular have demonstrated their usefulness in rice monitoring [4-6]. For such studies, the parametrical characterization of the crop phenological cycle is fundamental. In this paper, we present an experimental analysis based on the investigation of X-band backscattering derived from multitemporal TerraSAR-X data over three different types of summer crops (rice, maize, soybean). To this aim, we collected in situ data of crop biophysical parameters during the growth season, over a study area located in the south-eastern part of Lombardy region (North Italy).