## 1 Introduction
Over time, low-centered ice wedge polygons start to develop in drained basins, indicating the accumulation of massive ground ice bodies [33], which eventually creates preconditions for new ponding and the beginning of a new thermokarst lake cycle [12]. Previously, the thermokarst lake cycle was assumed to have a duration of 2,000-3,000 years in some regions of northwestern Alaska [8, 34], but recent studies show that some drained basins older than 5,000 years before present (BP) persisted as basins without redeveloping into a lake [12]. Also, mechanisms associated with ground ice dynamics in the thermokarst lake cycle have remained controversial, and the hypothesis that thermokarst lakes evolve in a direct cyclic order has been questioned for the northern Alaskan Coastal Plain [21]. For the northern Seward Peninsula, [PERSON] _et al._[10] and [PERSON] _et al._[35] demonstrated that frequency and timing of a thermokarst lake cycle depends on local factors, such as topography, ground ice content and distribution with depth, climate and the geomorphology and history of lake/basin configurations. A recent study has also found that thermokarst lake \"cycling\" often is not based on formation of new lakes in a DTLB, but linked to erosion from neighboring lakes that preferentially expand into the low banks of DTLB [27]. Understanding the temporal and spatial dynamics of DTLBs requires substantial geological, cryolithological and geochronological groundwork in remote regions of the Arctic. Application of remote sensing methods to map drained lake basins and their surface properties is a critical component in upscaling such field results to larger regions. In the past, a number of studies have exploited moderate and low resolution satellite images derived from optical sensors to map DTLBs, evaluate their spatial and temporal dynamics, as well as classify their relative age, relying on relationships of land surface properties to post-drainage succession in vegetation, soils and permafrost aggradation [9, 10, 12, 36]. [PERSON] _et al._[12] utilized Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) imagery to study the spatial extent of DTLBs and classify their relative age on the Barrow Peninsula, Alaska. For age-classification, they established a relationship between radiocarbon-dated surface peat and spectral and textural properties of basins, determined by factors such as vegetation type, degree of ponding and ice wedge polygon development, basin wetness and texture. [PERSON] _et al._[36] used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to link aircraft-based CO\({}_{2}\) flux estimates with NDVI of DTLBs at different successional stages for the same region. [PERSON] _et al._[10] used Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) based Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI), as well as Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF), to estimate carbon stocks stored in the uppermost peat deposits (\(\sim\)50-60 cm) of DTLBs of the northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska. However, remote sensing data derived from optical sensors is generally limited to surface conditions and do not penetrate into the soil. Hence, optical remote sensing data does not reveal much information about soil moisture conditions, which should be a good indicator of basin successional stage, particularly centuries after drainage, when basin vegetation succession slows down. SAR remote sensing data has been frequently used to detect soil surface moisture due to its sensitivity to soil's dielectric constant [37, 38, 39, 40]. In addition, SAR sensors also have advantage over optical remote sensing in Arctic regions, as they can image the Earth's surface in all weather conditions and at any time of the day. In this study, we investigated the application of high resolution X-band SAR data of the German TerraSAR-X (TSX) satellite for determining the time since lake drainage (or drained basin age) based on basin surface properties and to understand the post-drainage succession dynamics for a set of DTLBs.