Microwave remote sensing of hydrological parameters on the NOPEX area

A research project aimed at evaluating the microwave remote sensing methods for producing some basic parameters of land surfaces which influence the h ydrological cycle, on a regular basis, has been conducted within the framew ork of the European Northern Hemisphere Climate Processes Land-surface Expe riment (NOPEX) and Forest-Dynamic and Monitoring (Forest-Dynamo) experiment s. In this paper, the sensitivity of the backscattering coefficient at C-an d L-bands to soil moisture, surface roughness and herbaceous and arboreous biomass has been investigated by analysing experimental data collected with Synthetic Aperture Radar in Northern Europe by the airborne EMISAR during the European Multisensor Airborne Campaign (EMAC), organised by the Europea n Space Agency and in Italy during the Multisensor Airborne Campaign (MAC-9 1) and the Shuttle Imaging Radar (SIR-C) experiment, both organised by NASA with the cooperation of the Italian Space Agency. An analysis of SSM/I (Sp ecial Sensor Microwave Imager) radiometric satellite images, carried out ov er several Scandinavian regions, which has shown sensitivity to seasonal ch anges of vegetation and snow cover of microwave emission, is also reported. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.