NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), a novel SAR concept will be utilized to image wide swath at high resolution of stripmap SAR. It will have observations in L- and S-bands to understand highly spatial and temporally complex processes such as ecosystem disturbances, ice sheet changes, and natural hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and landslides. NISAR with several advanced features such as 12 days interferometric orbit, achievement of high resolution and wide swath images through SweepSAR technology and simultaneous data acquisition in dual frequency would support a host of applications. The primary objectives of NISAR are to monitor ecosystems including monitoring changes in ecosystem structure and biomass estimation, carbon flux monitoring; mangroves and wetlands characterization; alpine forest characterization and delineation of tree-line ecotone, land surface deformation including measurement of deformation due to co-seismic and inter-seismic activities; landslides; land subsidence and volcanic deformation, cryosphere studies including measurements of dynamics of polar ice sheet, ice discharge to the ocean, Himalayan snow and glacier dynamics, deep and coastal ocean studies including retrieval of ocean parameters, mapping of coastal erosion and shore-line change; demarcation of high tide line (HTL) and low tide line (LTL) for coastal regulation zones (CRZ) mapping, geological studies including mapping of structural and lithological features; lineaments and paleo-channels; geo-morphological mapping, natural disaster response including mapping and monitoring of floods, forest fires, oil spills, earthquake damage and monitoring of extreme weather events such as cyclones. In addition to the above, NISAR would support various other applications such as enhanced crop monitoring, soil moisture estimation, urban area development, weather and hydrological forecasting.

Date Published: 2 May 2016
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 9881, Earth Observing Missions and Sensors: Development, Implementation, and Characterization IV, 988103 (2 May 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2228027

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9881:
Earth Observing Missions and Sensors: Development, Implementation, and Characterization IV
Xiaoxiong J. Xiong; Saji Abraham Kuriakose; Toshiyoshi Kimura, Editor(s)