Microwave Scattering for Soil Texture at X-Band and Its Retrieval Using Genetic Algorithm

In the present paper, we have studied the effect of soil textures, i.e., sand, silt and clay on microwave scattering at X-band (10 GHz) at various incidence angles and like polarizations (i.e., Horizontal-Horizontal; HH-, Vertical-Vertical; VV-). We have proposed a retrieval technique based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) to retrieve soil texture. For this purpose, ten types of soil mixtures having different percentage of sand, silt and clay have been analyzed. The observations were carried out by ingeniously assembled X-band scatterometer. A good agreement has been noticed between estimated and observed soil texture. Study infers that soil texture is quite sensitive to radar scattering and it is possible to retrieve soil texture with radar/scatterometer data with good accuracy and this type of retrieved results can be helpful to predict soil strength as well as soil erosion of the particular area.