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EVALUATION OF DIGITAL SLAR IMAGES 
FOR AN AGRICULTURAL ARZA 
is, IEEE 
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New York, 
S.MOHAN" ani J.NITHACK"" 
* Remote Sensing Area, Space Applications Centre, 
Ahmedabad -3820053, INDI 
** DPVLR, Oberofaffenhafen, D.8031 Wessling, Federal 
Republic of Germany 
ABSTRACT 
The evaluation of side looking ariborne radar (SLAR) 
images for an agricultural area primarily requires a 
study of different fields on individual basis in 
various enviornmental conditions. In the evaluation 
process based on the individual studies of fields, a 
detailed information on the radar image characteristics 
can be obtained. The influence of row direction, soil 
moisture conditions, land/water interface, characteris- 
tics of different landuse category is studied in this 
paper. The influence of radiometric errors can be 
eliminated by the use of mean return characteristics of 
the sensor, The interpretation key can be generated on 
the basis of local statistics of various ground features. 
INTRODUCTION 
The potential of radar imagery has recently being 
exploited for crop classification and small scale land 
use mapping /^1-h 7. Most studies so far have dealt with 
the problem of crop type identification whereas some 
studies have indicated specific response denending on 
crop geometry. However, in order to properly assess the 
application potential of SLAR for agricultural studies, 
It is required £o study each land use category on the 
basis of individual fields. For conducting such studies, 
one of the images of Kundal test area obtained from 
X-band digital DFVLR-SLAR system was studied. The images 
were obtained within the Joint Cooperation of Indian 
Space Research Cooperation (ISRO) and German Aerospace 
Research ästablishment (DFVLR) in November-Decenber 1980 
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