In: Wagner W., Szekely, B. (eds.): ISPRS TC VII Symposium - 100 Years ISPRS, Vienna, Austria, July 5-7, 2010, IAPRS, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 7B 
In: Wagr 
68 
LAND USE CLASSIFICATION WITH HIGH-RESOLUTION 
SATELLITE RADAR FOR ESTIMATING THE IMPACTS OF LAND 
USE CHANGE ON THE QUALITY OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES 
D. Bargiel ab ’ *, S. Herrmann 3 , P.Lohmann b , U. Sörgel b 
a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institute of Environmental Planning, Herrenhäuserstr. 2, D-30419, 
Hannover, Germany- (bargiel, herrmann)@umwelt.uni-hannover.de 
b Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institute of Photogrammetry 
and Geoinformation, Nienburger Str.l, D-30167, Hannover, Germany - (lohmann, soergel)@ipi.uni-hannover.de 
KEY WORDS: Ecosystem, Land Use, Classification, Radar, Multi-temporal 
ABSTRACT: 
Ecosystems provide several services for human well-being. The quality of these ecosystem services is among others affected by 
agriculture, the main land user in Europe. Thus, it is essential to provide information about land use in agricultural areas. 
In this research, land use classification of agricultural areas is carried out based on high-resolution Spotlight TerraSAR-X images 
(TSX-images) of two different polarisations (HH and VV). A stack of several radar images taken during the vegetation season is 
used for multi-temporal classification of land cover. The typical phenology of agricultural vegetation types and their individual 
phenological development during the year cause differences in the backscatter of the radar signal over time. 
Two different study areas are investigated, one in the North East of the city of Hannover, Germany called “Fuhrberger Feld” and one 
in the “Gorajec area” in the very South East of Poland. These two areas represent extremely diverse European regions with regard to 
agro-technological level, population density, cultivation form as well as geological and geomorphological conditions. Thereby, the 
radar signal backscatter for different regions is tested. 
Preliminary results show significant differences in the backscatter of crop types in SAR data of about 3 m, especially for grasslands, 
grain and broad-leaved crops. Furthermore the VV polarised radar signal has clearly lower backscattering for grains during 
summertime and for grasslands in general than for broad-leaved crops. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Ecosystems have an important function for the quality of human 
life. They provide material goods and intangible values as 
“ecosystem services” for human well-being. They comprise all 
basic requirements for human well-being, e.g. food, water, air, 
climate, or recreation. Ecosystem services base on a complex 
system of ecosystems and their interactions. They enable 
security, health, basic material goods, and good social 
relationships (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; 
Myers & Reichert, 1997). 
Ecosystem services are affected by different direct and indirect 
drivers of change. Beside natural drivers, also human impacts 
influence the ecosystem services; one important impact is land 
use (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Although land 
use and ecosystem services interacted since the beginning of 
land cultivation, there has been an unprecedented increase of 
intensity in land use in the twentieth century (Poh Sze Choo et 
al., 2005; Ramankutty et al., 2006). This leads to numerous 
negative impacts on ecosystems services (Poh Sze Choo et al., 
2005; Ramankutty et al., 2006; DeFries, 2004). To assess the 
impacts of land-use changes on ecosystem services, it is 
indispensable to provide precise and up-to-date information 
about land use and land-use change. Remote sensing affords the 
opportunity to derive this information. New high-resolution 
sensor types are particularly suitable to improve land use 
classification results (Poh Sze Choo et al., 2005; 
Ramankutty et al., 2006). One of the new sensors is the 
TerraSAR-X satellite based radar sensor. 
TerraSAR-X allows acquisition of multiple polarized radar 
images (products) with a high ground resolution of up to one 
meter (DLR, 2007; Fritz & Eineder, 2009). As a satellite-based 
radar system it is able to provide reliable and regular 
information about earth surface. Hence, it is especially suitable 
for multi-temporal land-use classification. The basic idea of the 
multi-temporal land-use classification is to use a stack of 
several products during the vegetation period. Different 
phenological conditions of the vegetation cause an individual 
backscatter of radar signal in time. In this way, a higher content 
of information for the classification method is available. Studies 
with elder systems like ERS 2 or ENVISAT-ASAR showed 
already the general feasibility of this approach (Schieche et al., 
1999; Foody et al., 1988; Borgeaud et al., 1995; Tavakkoli 
Sabour et al., 2008). 
The objective of this study is to conduct a multi-temporal land- 
use classification of TerraSAR-X images and to examine the 
suitability of the classification results for assessing impacts of 
land-use change on ecosystem services. Individual temporal 
backscatter patterns are identified for different crop types. 
Observations concentrate on European agricultural areas and on 
two selected ecosystem services, namely biodiversity and soil. 
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* Corresponding author.