A Polsar Classification Algorithm and its Verification for Intertidal Flats in the German Wadden SEA.

Dual-co-polarization Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery also has large potentials in detecting sediments and habitats on exposed intertidal flats. We expand on our previous works of FCD-RF algorithm, that is, Freeman-Durden and Cloude-Pottier decompositions of polarimetric SAR, along with a Double-Bounce Eigenvalue Relative Difference (DERD) parameter, and a Random Forest (RF) classifier. By adding indicators derived from the (polarimetric) Kennaugh elements, that is, FCDK-RF, we found its good performance in distinguishing sand flats, mud flats, and bivalves. We tested our results using Radarsat-2 (C-band) dual-co-polarization (HH+VV) SAR data acquired along the German Wadden Sea. Results show that FCDK-RF fulfills the requirements in intertidal flats mapping projects especially for sediments and haibitats.