Applications potential of RADARSAT-2 - a preview

Abstract

This report describes the state-of-the-art with respect to the extraction of information from RADARSAT-2 type Synthetic Aperture Radar data for 32 applications in fields of agriculture, cartography, disaster management, forestry, geology, hydrology, oceans, and sea and land ice. As such, the report offers a preview of the application potential associated with the data products from the future RADARSAT-2 satellite. In addition, it facilitates the identification of application fields and information extraction techniques that require further research and development. In terms of application potential, the report focuses on an assessment of the data information content. Comparison of the ratings for the overall application potential of RADARSAT-1 and -2 shows that the biggest improvement is projected to be associated with the crop type, crop condition and sea ice topography / structure fields. This is primarily the result of the enhancement of RADARSAT-2 in terms of polarization. For 18 out of the 32 application fields considered the introduction of RADARSAT-2 is expected to result in a modest increase in application potential. The application potential for 10 fields is projected to remain unchanged. The recommendations for applications research and development focus on the new RADARSAT-2 data products. A widespread lack of understanding with regard to the relationship between the image information content and the polarization of the radar signal is identified. The report is based on first-hand experience of applications specialists at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing and the Canadian Ice Service as well as on findings that other researchers have published in the literature. It constitutes one of the first results of the RADARSAT-2 Applications Development Programme. This programme is led by the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing and financed by the Canadian Space Agency with Canadian Space Plan funds.