The ratio of the arithmetic to the geometric mean: a first-order statistical test for multilook SAR image homogeneity

The ratio of the arithmetic to the geometric mean is introduced as a general index to test SAR image homogeneity. Application to a multilook airborne SAR image shows that this first-order statistical measure compares advantageously and in some typical cases outperforms the coefficient of variation for the detection of random and structural heterogeneity.