The Africa Regional Data Cube (ARDC) is a new tool that aims to provide the latest earth observation and satellite technology to African countries, currently focusing on Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Tanzania, to address the sustainable development goals like food security as well as issues related to agriculture, deforestation, water access, etc. The open data cube (ODC) was...
The effects of variable terrain within a SAR image often dominate the backscatter signature, as the phenomenon of radar foreshortening is much stronger than radiometric distortions seen in aerial photography or satellite images obtained with optical instruments. Radiometric terrain correction (RTC) makes use of a digital elevation model (DEM) to simulate the radar imaging geometry and correct...
Among the problems related to the use of SAR data for target classification purposes, the discrimination of floodwater beneath vegetation still represents a challenge. Double-bounce backscattering is the key process to detect flooded vegetation. When ground is covered by a smooth and very reflective water surface, the intensity of the double-bounce effect involving the surface and vertical...
The Sentinel-1 (S-1) mission defines a whole new playground where to explore the limits and potentialities of diverse technologies to generate updated and precise land-cover maps all around the globe. The availability of frequent and global data favors the emergence of alternative approaches to the mapping scene where mostly the optical, but also the radiometric, data have established their...
Bistatic Radar for Earth Observation has been recently proposed for interferometric and urban applications, addressing bistatic geometry with relatively small spatial baselines, i.e., quasi monostatic configurations. In this work, we explore the scattering behaviour of land surfaces for arbitrary bistatic configuration, that is for any observing direction of the passive element, even out of...
Human society increasingly depends on information derived from Earth Observation (EO) data. In particular, there is an growing demand for information facilitating agriculture, forestry, soil moisture and hydrology. To this purpose the number of space-borne satellites is projected to increase dramatically over the next years, in the form of ESA/NASA scientific missions but also small cube-sat...
Flood events can have devastating consequences on society, economy and ecosystems worldwide. Precise information about the flood extent in the affected areas is therefore an essential foundation for local relief workers, decision-makers from crisis management authorities or insurance companies. Besides the open water, flooded vegetation areas are essential for a detection of the entire flood...
