(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
future users of <strong>SAR</strong> images. Very low or no cost images for research in
developing countries should be provided, this should be done with more seminars
or teaching courses in use of <strong>SAR</strong> images in developing countries. I think that the
GEO <strong>Agricultural</strong> Moni<strong>to</strong>ring Community of Practice is an important step in this
way.”
• “Education and tailor made training courses.”
• “I think the upcoming workshop is a good step but there needs <strong>to</strong> be follow-on.”
• “Develop a <strong>SAR</strong> constellation that produces continuous systematic observations
throughout the growing season.”
• “Strongly consider long term calibration and validation sites for all agricultural
mapping sensor data in developing countries. Help build functional networks on
ground data or in-situ moni<strong>to</strong>ring processes. Consider modeling socio-economic
issues on operational product development using <strong>SAR</strong> data.”
• “Increased capacity building through training and availability of <strong>SAR</strong> products
and <strong>to</strong>ols for analysis and interpretation, particularly <strong>to</strong> new users from
developing regions, will go a long way <strong>to</strong> encouraging greater use of <strong>SAR</strong> for
<strong>Agricultural</strong> Moni<strong>to</strong>ring.”
• “Online training is a key component, particularly for advanced <strong>SAR</strong>
(polarimetry/inferometry) - academia should be included!”
• “Focus on workshop sessions <strong>to</strong> run examples. Explore different applications; get
people/potential users engaged and involved in thinking about work they do that
could use <strong>SAR</strong> information.”
5.6 Other Views
In answer <strong>to</strong> Question 11, other views that are relevant <strong>to</strong> the International GEO
Workshop on <strong>SAR</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Support</strong> <strong>Agricultural</strong> Moni<strong>to</strong>ring include:
• “Develop databank of standardized/representative values for surface roughness
for different crop or soil conditions.”
• “Exploration on the possibility of a <strong>SAR</strong> payload in a micro-satellite should be
discussed, <strong>to</strong> compete with the existing optic payloads operated in most of the
existing micro-satellites.”
• “<strong>SAR</strong> systems (sensor + ground segment) should be designed <strong>to</strong> allow continuous
moni<strong>to</strong>ring, i.e. data flows should be completely au<strong>to</strong>matic. Image ordering,
manual processing, etc. should become a thing of the past.”
• “There is a strong need for constellation of <strong>SAR</strong> satellites at different frequencies
and different polarization, incidence angle, high repeat cycle of 5 <strong>to</strong> 10 days).”
• “I would like <strong>to</strong> see an overview of prices of <strong>SAR</strong> data. Should prices be keyed on
$ per sq km? Or should they be keyed on number of polarizations? Or should they
be keyed on what the data is used for?”
• “It is unclear if the desirable extent of <strong>SAR</strong> local / regional coverage could be
promptly obtained concurrently with an event of interest (i.e. hurricane or flood).
Apparently, we need <strong>to</strong> learn more about <strong>SAR</strong> capabilities and methods <strong>to</strong> access
Report on Results: Survey on <strong>SAR</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Support</strong> <strong>Agricultural</strong> Moni<strong>to</strong>ring – Annex 1 31