Geomorphological mapping of ice-free areas using polarimetric RADARSAT-2 data on Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island, Antarctica

Abstract

Satellite-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been used for characterizing and mapping in two relevant ice-free areas in the South Shetland Islands. The objective has been to identify and characterize land surface covers that mainly include periglacial and glacial landforms, using fully polarimetric SAR C band RADARSAT-2 data, on Fildes Peninsula that forms part of King George Island, and Ardley Island. Polarimetric parameters obtained from the SAR data, a selection of field based training and validation sites and a supervised classification approach, using the support vector machine were chosen to determine the spatial distribution of the different landforms. Eight periglacial and glacial landforms were characterized according to their scattering mechanisms using a set of 48 polarimetric parameters. The mapping of the most representative surface covers included colluvial deposits, stone fields and pavements, patterned ground, glacial till and rock outcrops, lakes and glacier ice. The overall accuracy of the results was estimated at 81%, a significant value when mapping areas that are within isolated regions where access is limited. Periglacial surface covers such as stone fields and pavements occupy 25% and patterned ground over 20% of the ice-free areas. These are results that form the basis for an extensive monitoring of the ice-free areas throughout the northern Antarctic Peninsula region.