Speaker
Description
SAR is increasingly used in the fields of agriculture, forestry, soil moisture and hydrology, providing finer spatial resolution information than passive microwave remote sensing and scatterometry. However, there is an emerging demand for SAR imagery at finer temporal scales. Specifically, there is an observation gap at sub-daily scales. While SAR imagery is theoretically available from several commercial providers, the cost and limited availability limits their value for scientific applications related to sub-daily process understanding. Here, we will present some results from a ESA New Earth Observation Mission Idea study where we developed a concept based on sub-daily SAR to address scientific objectives related to vegetation water, carbon and health, agricultural water use, geo-hydrological hazard and land-precipitation feedbacks. Given the scope of BioGeoSAR, the focus in this presentation will be on the state-of-the-art in terms of suitable forward modeling and retrieval approaches and the knowledge and observation gaps that need to be filled to extend their use to sub-daily scales.
