Impact of polarization and incidence of the ASAR sensor on coastline mapping: example of Gabon

Abstract

Coastline mapping is of great interest in many different applications. In this Letter, we analyse the effect of the polarization and the incidence angle of the new Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) sensor on coastline detection. Results indicate a marked dependence of the incidence angle and polarization on the delimitation between land and sea. At low incidence angles (<30°), delimitation is much clearer with HV polarization than with HH and VV polarizations. Delimitation is high whatever the polarization at high incidence angles (>30°). The multi‐polarization aspect of ASAR, in addition to its multi‐incidence aspect, therefore, allows coastline evolution to be monitored both more efficiently and more frequently. Consequently, the ASAR sensor is better adapted to coastline monitoring than the older ERS‐1/2 and Radarsat‐1 sensors.