Monitoring of the Snow Cover with a Ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radar

The feasibility of retrieving changes in the depth of snow cover by means of the LISA (LInear SAR) Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar system has been investigated. The LISA instrument con-sists of a computer-controlled sledge moving along a linear axis 5 m long, a set of transmit and receive antennas, a network analyzer, and a C-Band amplifier. All the equipment is installed inside a temperature controlled container. The centre frequency used in the measurement campaign is 5.83 GHz (C-band), with a 60 MHz bandwidth. The resolution of a single SAR image is in the order of 6 m in azimuth and 2.5 m in range, while in the interferometric mode, the range resolution in the coherence images is below 2 mm in the line-of-sight direction. Typical image products of LISA are similar to those of space or aerial radar missions. The only particularity of LISA is that the image covers a much smaller area (a few square km). However, it has the advantage of providing images at a much larger acquisition rate (about some tens in a single day). Over several weeks this amounts to a very large time-series of radar images that gives the opportunity to assess the feasi-bility of using a GB-SAR (Ground Based Synthetic Aperture Radar) system to monitor structural changes of the snow cover. The availability of a sensor network and meteo stations on the slope gives the possibility of validating the retrieval scheme.

MARTINEZ VAZQUEZ Alberto;  FORTUNY GUASCH Joaquim;  GRUBER Urs; 

2006-11-23

European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSel)

JRC32244

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC32244,