(SAR) to Support Agricultural Monitoring 2 - Group on Earth ...

International GEO Workshop on <strong>SAR</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Support</strong> <strong>Agricultural</strong> Moni<strong>to</strong>ring
5.5 Other Suggestions <strong>to</strong> Encourage Greater Use of <strong>SAR</strong> Data
In answer <strong>to</strong> Question 10, other suggestions <strong>to</strong> encourage greater use of <strong>SAR</strong> data
include:
• “Encourage Research & Development with additional funding <strong>to</strong> University and
Department Research Branch.”
• “Focus on funding demonstration related projects.”
• “A price policy should be created <strong>to</strong> differentiate price for retail and bulk image
procurement. <strong>Agricultural</strong> applications require bulk images, which should be
given a special discount price compared <strong>to</strong> the retail price. Otherwise, the image
cost will be the barrier for <strong>SAR</strong> applications in Agriculture.”
• “Real use of <strong>SAR</strong> data only starts when mature higher-level products become
readily available. This applies both <strong>to</strong> scientific and commercial applications.”
• “Link young researchers or users <strong>to</strong> experienced researchers in joint projects for
men<strong>to</strong>ring, knowledge and skills transfer (particularly North-South joint projects).
Enable users <strong>to</strong> produce relevant operational products that have multiple uses.”
• “<strong>SAR</strong> data be sold at an affordable price <strong>to</strong> the users.”
• “Disseminate relevant case studies.”
• “Develop application-specific demonstration packages (Procedure and S/W
package) and provide sample data free of cost for the area of a user concerned.”
• “Operational use of data relies on defined products that have demonstrated use.
Products must have known delivery times and known prices.”
• “To determine the needs of the users and show examples of how radar can be
used <strong>to</strong> answer those questions. This information also needs <strong>to</strong> be provided <strong>to</strong>
managers of government departments so they ‘buy’ in<strong>to</strong> EO and radar
technology.”
• “Develop training videos at low cost.”
• “Showing case studies of better accuracy, techniques, data and software would
encourage greater use of <strong>SAR</strong>.”
• “The biggest impediment is cost. If data costs were low (free), the community
would use the data and operational applications would be built.”
• “Involve the media in focusing on the importance of <strong>SAR</strong> technologies.”
• “The complexities of the Mathematics and Physics of <strong>SAR</strong> - Target interactions
should be brought in at a later stage once the user has an understanding of basic
interactions. Single polarized multi-temporal <strong>SAR</strong> should be the stepping s<strong>to</strong>ne
followed by dual polarized data. The basics of the <strong>SAR</strong>-agriculture interaction as
a ready reckoner could be made available for a given frequency and polarization
at sensor level and geometry and wetness at target level. This may help <strong>to</strong> break
the ice for users. Secondly, data costs have <strong>to</strong> come down considerably.”
• “I am working with RADARSAT-2 images thanks <strong>to</strong> the SOAR Program, and
this is providing me and my research team the opportunity of high technology of
very high cost data, <strong>to</strong>tally free. More images for researchers and university
teaching programs are necessary. Remember that our students of <strong>to</strong>day are the
Report on Results: Survey on <strong>SAR</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Support</strong> <strong>Agricultural</strong> Moni<strong>to</strong>ring – Annex 1 30