Monitoring temporal trends to assess infestation of water hyacinth in Lake Victoria using PolSAR

Water hyacinth (WH) is a dreadful invasive species in Lake Victoria which spreads and forms vast floating mats. In this research, the temporal variability of WH is assessed using PolSAR data by applying the Optimization of Power Difference (OPDiff) change detection technique on Sentinel-1 IW SLC data. The detector separated WH from clear water using the minimum eigenvalues by selecting the contribution from unpolarized scattering. The algorithms allowed quantification of temporal monthly and annual trends which established that highest WH amounts were recorded in 2018 within the last 4 months of the year.