Study of RADARSAT-2 synthetic aperture radar data for observing sensitive factors of global environmental change

Abstract

Global environmental change has gained widespread global attention. It is a complex system with special spatial and temporal evolutionary characteristics. Sensitive factors are indicators of global environmental change, and some can be observed with Earth observation technology. RADARSAT-2 is capable of polarimetric and interferometric observations, which can provide an effective way to document some sensitive factors of global environmental change. This study focuses on the usage of RADARSAT-2 data for observing sensitive factors of environmental change and building highly accurate application models that connect synthetic aperture radar data and observable sensitive factors. These include (1) extracting spatiotemporal distribution of large-scale alluvial fan, (2) extracting vegetation vertical structure, (3) detecting urban land cover change, and (4) monitoring seasonal floods. From this study, RADARSAT-2 data have been demonstrated to have excellent capabilities in documenting several sensitive factors related to global environmental change. © The Authors.