Managing Crops
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This is a three-frequency, false color, SIR-C/X SAR image of Flevoland, The Netherlands,
taken in April 1994. Flevoland is a very flat area of reclaimed land used for
agriculture and forestry. At the top of the image, across the canal from Flevoland,
is an older forest shown in red. At this time of the year, the
agricultural fields are bare soil, and they show up in this image in blue. The changes in the
brightness of the blue areas are equal to the changes in roughness. The dark blue areas are
water and the small dots in the canal are boats. This SIR-C/X-SAR supersite is being used
for both calibration and agricultural studies.
LightSAR's Potential Contribution:
LightSAR's operating wavelength and multiple polarization modes will enable it to produce
images in which surface roughness can be distinguished from soil moisture. The spatial resolution
of LightSAR's images will allow observation of the detailed spatial variability of soil moisture.
Repeat observation of the same area every 8 to 10 days, as close as possible to the same time of
day each pass, will also allow monitoring of temporal variability of soil moisture.
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