Analytical results for the bistatic scattering coefficients and the backscattering cross sections have been derived for active remote sensing of earth terrain with the model of bounded random media which accounts for volume‐scattering effects. It is found that as a result of the effect of the second boundary, the horizontally polarized return &sgr;hhcan be greater than the vertically polarized return &sgr;vv, whereas for a half‐space random medium &sgr;vvis always greater than &sgr;hh. We illustrate by matching the theoretical results with experimental data collected from vegetation field.