Table 2-3 pg 2-16

Table 2-3. Potential or Demonstrated Capabilities of Spaceborne SARs for Ecology

APPLICATION AREA	SPACECRAFT CAPABILITIES
	ERS-1/ERS-2	JERS-1	Radarsat	ENVISAT	SIR-C/X-SAR
Vegetation Mapping	Poor overall, improvement with multitemporal data	Somewhat better than ERS-1, but still poor overall, multitemporal may improve, but has low sampling frequency	probably poor without using multi-temporal data	better than single polarization systems, but still not optimum; multi-temporal data needed	near optimum configuration
Crop Monitoring	good results achieved using multi-temporal data	poor overall, sampling frequency too low	good potential with multi-temporal sampling	improvement over single-channel systems	near optimum for single-date classification
Biomass Estimation	poor except for low biomasses	good for lower biomass, but still limited	poor except for very low biomass	some improvement over ERS-1/Radarsat, but still poor	near optimum configuration, but lower frequency (P-band) still optimum system
Monitoring Flooded Forests	poor except when few leaves are present	a good system for flood detection, but poor for monitoring because of low sampling frequency	will be better than ERS-1, but limited to leaf off conditions or low density stands	will be better than ERS-1, but limited to leaf off conditions or low density stands	near optimum in terms of frequency/ polarization, poor in terms of repeat frequency
Monitoring Coastal/ Low Stature Wetlands	adequate in some situations	poor	better than ERS-1 because of higher repeat frequency and HH polarization	good overall - better than ERS-1/ Radarsat because of multiple-polarizations and high repeat frequency	near optimum in terms of frequency/ polarization, poor in terms of repeat frequency

Table 2-3 Cont'd pg 2-17

Table 2-3 (continued). Potential or Demonstrated Capabilities of Spaceborne SARs for Ecology

Monitoring Tundra Inundation	very good	poor, frequency too low	potential high, especially with wide-swath mode	potential excellent with dual polarizations and wide swath mode	orbital ephemeris does not reach high latitudes, data not applicable
Monitoring Fire-Disturbed Boreal Forests	very good	poor, sensitivity to variations in soil moisture low	potential high, especially with wide-swath mode	potential excellent with dual polarizations and wide swath mode	excellent potential for lower-latitude boreal forests
Detection of Frozen/ Thawed Vegetation	fair for this application, repeat frequency limits system somewhat	poor, repeat frequency too low	potential high, especially with wide-swath mode	potential excellent with dual polarizations and wide swath mode	can study processes on a limited basis with existing data