Local texture stationarity indicator for filtering Doñana wetlands SAR images

Abstract

This paper defines a new operator, named Ds, for local texture stationarity assessment on SAR images. . The aim is to discriminate heterogeneous targets from land cover types of high normalized variance values, as those observed in flooded vegetation areas of Doñana wetlands. Suitable Ds thresholds for such discrimination were estimated for different window sizes through Monte Carlo simulations of synthetic textures. Maximum stationary texture windows were then determined on Doñana ASAR scenes by Ds multi-resolution thresholding and averaging was applied within. Results reveal the substantial degree of smoothing achieved over high variance cover types, while edges among different targets were properly preserved.