Abstract: In this paper, a three-component scattering model is proposed to decompose compact polarimetric (CP) synthetic aperture radar images based on the partially polarized wave dichotomy theorem.We express the Jones covariance matrix of CP data as the sum of three simple scattering mechanisms, which are volume scatter, double-bounce scatter and surface scatter.An advantage of this model fit approach is that the scattering contributions from the three basic scattering mechanisms can be calculated directly from CP SAR images without the reconstruction of fully polarimetric (FP) data, which can reduce superposition of error significantly.A FP image of Plattling region in Germany, acquired by TerraSAR-X, is chosen to generate CP data, and decomposed by the proposed decomposition.The Pauli decomposition result of FP data has been used for comparison.The model proposed is shown to describe the behavior of the surface scatter and the volume scatter as well as the latter. However, the model proposed has overestimated the volume scatter, which requires many inputs to solve this scattering problem.