EVALUATION OF TERRASAR-X FOR NATURAL OIL SEEP STUDIES

C-band SAR has been used for natural oil seep detection in Australia. There is generally a low level of confidence associated with natural oil seeps identified on SAR images over Australian coastal waters due to poor characterisation of false positives that produce low-backscatter features on SAR. The availability of high resolution TerraSAR-X data provides an opportunity to establish the effectiveness of X-band SAR for natural oil seep detection in Australian waters. The focus of this study was to assess low-backscatter features observed in the TerraSAR-X images. In this paper, we report preliminary results from initial evaluation of single polarised X-band data products from TerraSAR-X over two study areas. Our evaluation of TerraSAR data is independent of C and L-band polarimetric data from other sources being evaluated over the same study area