Improving Flood Detection in Vegetated Areas Through Multi-Frequency, Polarimetric and Interferometric SAR Data

The Zambezi river basin, one of the world's largest flood- plains, located in south-eastern Africa, is recurrently subject to floods [1]. It has been the subject of several studies ex- ploiting multi-temporal SAR data to monitor its hydrological cycle and periodic inundations, e.g. [2]. We analyse L-band (ALOS 2) and C-band (Sentinel-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data collected over the Shire river floodplain, near the confluence with the Zambezi, be- tween the Tete and Zambezia provinces, Mozambique (see Fig. 1), exploiting both polarimetric decomposition [3] and interferometric techniques [4] to highlight the presence of water beneath vegetation, wind-blown floodwater bodies, and other areas not normally detected by simpler thresholding methodologies.