Speckle Divergence

Urban Area Mapping with Speckle Divergence

Local speckle characteristics can provide a texture layer that highlights built-up areas. Local deviation from the fully developed speckle—speckle divergence D_x,y increases with a rising amount of true structures within the resolution cell.    The variation of structures leads to a local heterogeneity that gives urban areas a very specific and distinct appearance in SAR images.

T. Esch, M. Thiel, A. Schenk, A. Roth, A. Müller, and S. Dech, "Delineation of Urban Footprints From TerraSAR-X Data by Analyzing Speckle Characteristics and Intensity Information," IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 905-916, 2010.

T. Esch and A. Roth, “Semi-automated classification of urban areas by means of high resolution radar data,” in Proc. ISPRS Congr., 2004, pp. 478–482. 

M. Stasolla and P. Gamba, “Spatial indexes for the extraction of formal and informal human settlements from high-resolution SAR images,” IEEE J. Sel. Topics Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 98–106, Jun. 2008.