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Synthetic Aperture Radar: Ecosystems

Name: Synthetic Aperture Radar: Ecosystems
Price: 229 USD
Availability: InStock

58 studentsINTERMEDIATEEnglish

Korshub's take

Synthetic Aperture Radar does what optical satellites cannot: see the Earth's surface in darkness, through clouds, rain, and smoke. This course teaches you to read SAR images for ecosystem monitoring—detecting forest loss, measuring biomass, tracking agricultural change.

SAR's unique strength is penetration. It reads vegetation structure, which optical sensors miss, making it irreplaceable for measuring above-ground biomass and understanding how ecosystems shift with seasons and disturbance. The course grounds theory in real data: you'll work with actual SAR time series from forested regions and agricultural sites, interpreting what the radar is actually showing.

Hands-on labs (for verified-track learners) use Jupyter Notebooks to visualize and analyze SAR data. By course end, you'll recognize what different wavelengths and polarizations reveal, and how to turn raw radar into actionable intelligence for conservation and land management. Essential for environmental scientists and remote-sensing professionals.

About this course

Remote sensing observations have become an essential tool in observing the state and evolution of the earth’s ecosystems. They are a unique means within earth sciences to gain an immediate and regional- to continental-scale view of the earth environment, allowing for the monitoring and change detection of entire biomes over time.

This course will introduce you to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), a remote sensing technology that can see the earth surface even during darkness and through rain, clouds, or smoke. As a participant in this course, you will learn how the weather-independence of SAR combined with its ability to penetrate into vegetation canopies make SAR an excellent information source to characterize vegetation structure, measure above-ground biomass, and analyze the change of vegetation long term and throughout the seasons. Each SAR ecosystem application will be illustrated with relevant data sets and hands-on exercises. Specific topics include:

The concepts and principles of SAR and polarimetric SAR
How to access and visualize SAR data and SAR imagery
Interpretation of SAR images at different wavelengths and polarizations in the context of ecosystems monitoring
The use of SAR techniques in monitoring forest degradation
Techniques for estimating forest biomass through SAR earth observation
The application of SAR to the monitoring of agriculture extent
The learned concepts will be put into action in using SAR time series data sets from spaceborne SAR missions over agriculture sites and forested regions undergoing degradation. Learners registered for the verified track will additionally get the opportunity for hands-on lab exercises and tutorials using Jupyter Notebooks. The verified track will also include peer discussions and a verified certificate upon successful completion.

This course is produced by the Alaska Satellite Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which has been selected as the NASA data hub for the upcoming NISAR mission.