相对于传统的光谱探测, 偏振探测能够提供更多的目标信息, 比如, 利用偏振探测手段解译材料表面的折射率、 粗糙度等特性; 也可用来反演土壤的湿度等。 应用土壤表面反射光的偏振特性来反演土壤湿度, 为定量反演土壤湿度提供一种新的方法, 在农业、 水文、 气象和生态等领域中都有十分重要的意义。 针对遥感中的一类混合像元难题, 即低植被覆盖情况的土壤样品, 通过实验测量, 研究了样品表面偏振特性, 进一步研究了样品表面偏振特性与土壤湿度的关系。 结果表明, 低植被覆盖土壤表面的偏振特性主要受裸土区域的影响, 并与土壤湿度之间存在一种相关关系, 例如, 在本次实验中, 当偏振度较小的光源以40°入射, 且观测角处于20°～60°时, 三种湿度土壤样品表面的偏振度与土壤湿度呈正比关系。 进一步定量化这种相关关系将为反演低植被覆盖土壤湿度提供了一种新的途径。

Compared with the spectral detection method, polarization detection could obtain more information of the target. For example, the polarization detection could be applied to interpret the refractive index and the surface roughness of the object, or retrieve the soil moisture, etc. Polarization detection provides a new approach to quantitative retrieval of soil moisture, and this is very important in agriculture, hydrology, meteorology and ecology. The polarization characteristics of soil surface with low vegetation cover, which is a example of mixed pixel in remote sensing, were researched with experiments, and the relationship between the polarization characteristics and soil moisture was also explored. The results showed that the polarization characteristics of soil surface with low vegetation cover are mainly determined by the area of bare soil, and are strongly relevant with the soil moisture. For the results of experiments in this paper, the DOLP of soil surface with low vegetation cover increased with increasing soil moisture when the viewing angle of instrument was between 20 degree and 60 degree, while the incident angle of light source was fixed at 40 degree. This paper offered a new method to retrieve moisture content of soil with low vegetation cover.