Importance of SAR systems in Earth Observation applications

The key importance of radar remote sensing for earth observation applications has been recognized for decades, and enormous scientific and technical developments have been carried out since then to further improve the SAR sensors and its data processing. SAR data can be obtained by systems ranged now not only from traditional airborne and satellite levels, but also from terrestrial stations and even carried on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). More recently, SAR satellite constellations consisting of two or more satellites are also becoming usual and allow interferometry. The present availability of these SAR sensors (and several other planned SAR missions) may supply a continuous stream of data for a variety of earth observation applications. However, the powerful and unique information is only available when proper data processing methodology is applied. This thematic session brings new contributions in this field and present insights and possible research collaborations.