Identification of Rice Fields in Rwanda with Sentinel-1 in Google Earth Engine: An exploration of remote sensing and rice fields

This article uses Sentinel-1 satellite images to identify rice fields in Rwanda from 2017 to 2021 in an attempt to derive the current status of rice in Muvumba catchment, in the northern part of Rwanda. The timing of rice cultivation in each season in that area was identified as not homogeneous, but generally aligned with the local rainy season....

Estimating volumes of supraglacial lakes on the AIS: Comparing satellite-based and model-based techniques for estimating water volume of supraglacial lakes on the Antarctic ice sheet

Disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves can induce devastated consequences for the environment and human infrastructure in the form of an increase of the global mean sea level. One of the causes of an ice shelf break down is hydrofracturing due to the mass load of supraglacial lakes. The top of the snowpack melts and the meltwater flows to a...

Sensitivity Assessment of Sentinel-1 SAR Closure Phase to Vegetation and Soil Moisture Dynamics: A Case Study for Regions in Southern France

From three coherent SAR images it is possible to estimate three interferograms. Combined in a circular way, the sum of the three interferometric phases is called the closure phase which necessarily adds up to zero on a single pixel level. However, if the interferograms are spatially averaged, phase consistency is not guaranteed. In most of the...

Soccer Fields as Rainfall Detectors using Machine Learning: The case of Ghana

Agriculture is an important source of income for many countries in the Global South, where it may account for as much as 25% of GDP. Precipitation is crucial for agriculture in countries like Ghana, where ~95% of farming is rainfed. Accurate rainfall observations are limited in Ghana. The sparse rain gauge network and the lack of weather radars...

Application of Sentinel-1 data to quantify Arctic Coastal Retreat

In the arctic region many coastal areas exhibit rapid erosion, with coastal retreat or erosion rates of 10 meters per year (m/yr.) or higher in places. This poses a threat primarily to all manner of infrastructure built directly on and near the coastline. With climate change the coastal erosion is expected to increase. This effect is expected to...

What Wets the Wetlands?: Reconstructing the Mara Wetland surface water dynamics through coupling satellite derived inundation patterns with hydrological field data

The Mara Wetland in Tanzania has an important role in regulating the quality, timing and magnitude of the flow of water into Lake Victoria. In addition, the wetland provides natural resources for local communities and habitat for variety of species. The planned dam construction upstream of the wetland and projected changes in the local climate...

InSAR-based analysis and monitoring of hazardous glacial lakes in the Himalaya

Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are outbursts caused by the failure of glacial lake moraine dams. Longer ongoing processes, such as moraine dam degradation, or instantaneous events, such as landslides, can trigger dam failure. GLOFs have a catastrophic downstream impact leading to significant economic damages and more than 12000 casualties...

Investigating the influence of drought on Sentinel-1 C-band SAR data over agricultural crops: A study in the Netherlands

The stress on global food security is expected to increase. Hence, crop and drought monitoring will become increasingly important in the future. Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) are able to penetrate clouds and thus reliably provide data. Despite the extensive literature that can be found on the use of high spatio-temporal resolution SAR data, a...

Investigating the use of C-band phase closure data to produce soil moisture maps

Soil Moisture is a key hydrological variable since it controls the interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere. It is responsible for the partitioning of precipitation into evaporation, transpiration, percolation and run-off. Soil Moisture monitoring is used to indicate droughts in vegetated areas and is an important parameter...

Evaluation of a wind farm parameterization in an operational mesoscale model

In the coming decade, the Dutch government plans to broadly expand its wind farm real estate over the North Sea region. This is a significant undertaking because, from literature, it is understood that wind turbines can affect the local environment. These impacts include, but are not limited to, changes in variables such as wind speed and...

Urban Infrastructure Damage Detection and Mapping Using Sentinel 1

Natural or man-made disasters can have a drastic impact on social, economic and environmental aspects of an affected population. Specifically, earthquakes are one of the most potent natural hazards, which cause a disproportionate amount of fatalities, primarily due to a) unexpected building collapses, b) restricted or limited access to basic...

Sinking Yangon: Detection of subsidence caused by groundwater extraction using SAR interferometry and PSI time-series analysis for Sentinel-1 data

Inhabitants and ecosystems in delta areas are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the effects of subsidence, triggered both by natural causes and anthropogenic causes. Yangon is a city in the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar where little is known about the true extent of this hazard, while its effects can potentially harm millions of its inhabitants....

Crop monitoring with Radar

We showed that radar can provide valuable insight in crop development. There is a strong relationship between radar and the vegetation index NDVI, which is derived from visible and near infrared images. With radar we can fill the gaps present in visible and near infrared images due to cloud cover. It is shown that dual-polarized radars are...