The low-earth-orbit synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can achieve enhanced remote-sensing capabilities by exploiting the large-scale and long-duration beam coverage of a geosynchronous (GEO) SAR illuminator. Different bistatic imaging modes can be implemented by the steering of an antenna beam onboard the LEO receiver, such as high-resolution sliding-spotlight mode. In this paper, the accurate focusing of GEO-LEO bistatic SAR (GEO-LEO BiSAR) in sliding-spotlight mode is investigated. First, the two major problems of the accurate bistatic range model, i.e., curved trajectory within long integration time and ‘stop-and-go’ assumption error, for sliding-spotlight GEO-LEO BiSAR are analyzed. Then, a novel bistatic range model based on equivalent circular orbit trajectory is proposed to accurately represent the range history of GEO-LEO BiSAR in sliding-spotlight mode. Based on the proposed range model, a frequency-domain imaging method is put forward. First, a modified two-step preprocessing method is implemented to remove the Doppler aliasing caused by azimuth variance of Doppler centroid and beam steering. Then, an azimuth trajectory scaling is formulated to remove the azimuth variance of motion parameters due to curved trajectory. A modified frequency-domain imaging method is derived to eliminate the 2-D spatial variance and achieve accurate focusing of the echo data. Finally, imaging results and analysis on both simulated data and real data from an equivalent BiSAR experiment validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article

Polarization calibration without artificial calibrators has been one of the focuses of research and discussion for PolSAR communities. However, there is limited research on the treatment of dual-polarization systems and the calibration methods for getting rid of distributed targets. In this paper, we contribute to proposing a new and convenient method for estimating the polarimetric channel imbalance phase at the transmitter and receiver, which can be used for both quad-pol and dual-pol SAR systems. We found a brand-new reference object in the urban area scene, namely the effective dihedrals. A statistical calculation method was proposed correspondingly, which obtained an effective estimation of the channel imbalance phases. The theoretical explanation of the proposed method was consistent with the statistical phenomena presented in the experiments. The technique was illustrated and verified through C-band SAR images, including GaoFen-3 (GF-3) data and Sentinel-1 data. The technique was also validated and successfully applied in airborne SAR data of P, L, S, C, and X bands. The estimation error could be within 7° when crosstalk items were less than −30 dB. The method realizes a fast and low-cost dual-polarization phase imbalance estimation and provides a new technical approach to supplement the traditional tropical-rainforest-based quad-pol system calibration. The method can be conveniently applied to the monitoring of polarization distortion parameters, ensuring good polarization SAR data quality. Full article

Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data provide an alternative way for topography retrieval, especially when limited PolSAR data are available. This article proposes a novel topography retrieval algorithm based on the Lambertian backscatter model that further improves the vertical precision of digital elevation model (DEM) generation and requires only one flight. The key idea of the proposed algorithm is to avoid data fluctuations caused by the ratio of the azimuth slope angle to the polarimetric orientation angle (POA). The previous research has confirmed the feasibility of generating a DEM based on single-pass PolSAR data, but its effect on the quality of reference DEM has not been well-explained. To analyze this effect, a large number of experiments on DEM with different resolutions are conducted. In addition, an in-depth analysis of non-linear and terrain-dependent errors is performed. The L-band PolSAR data of NASA/JPL TOPSAR and ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 and interferometric SAR (InSAR) DEM data are used to verify the proposed algorithm. The experimental results show that PolSAR data can be used as an additional reliable information source for DEM fusion under certain conditions to improve the quality of public DEM. Full article

Reliable feature matching plays an important role in the fields of computer vision and photogrammetry. Due to the complex transformation model caused by photometric and geometric deformations, and the limited discriminative power of local feature descriptors, initial matches with high outlier ratios cannot be addressed very well. This study proposes a reliable outlier-removal algorithm by combining two affine-invariant geometric constraints. First, a very simple geometric constraint, namely, CAI (collinear affine invariance) has been implemented, which is based on the observation that the collinear property of any two points is invariant under affine transformation. Second, after the first-step outlier removal based on the CAI constraint, the SOV (scale-orientation voting) scheme was then adopted to remove remaining outliers and recover the lost inliers, in which the peaks of both scale and orientation voting define the parameters of the geometric transformation model. Finally, match expansion was executed using the Delaunay triangulation of refined matches. By using close-range (rigid and non-rigid images) and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) datasets, comprehensive comparison and analysis are conducted in this study. The results demonstrate that the proposed outlier-removal algorithm achieves the best overall performance when compared with RANSAC-like and local geometric constraint-based methods, and it can also be applied to achieve reliable outlier removal in the workflow of SfM-based UAV image orientation. Full article

This study used high-resolution remote-sensing technology and CFD models to carry out a simulation study of a three-dimensional (3D) USTE for daytime and nighttime at a block scale. Firstly, the influence of vegetation with different spatial layouts on the 3D USTE was analyzed. Moreover, the heat transfer process and heat conduction process between urban surface components at the block scale were simulated, and in the meanwhile, the distribution and changes of the 3D USTE and the regional wind pressure environment were monitored. The simulation results showed that (1) vegetation has a relatively significant mitigation effect on the thermal environment near the surface, (2) vegetation with different morphologies and layouts results in significant differences in the mitigation efficiency of wind speed and canyon USTE, and (3) the seasonal spatial 3D temperature can be mitigated as well. In addition, this study analyzed the mitigation effect of vegetation on the urban wind–heat environment during both daytime and nighttime. The results indicated that (1) the mitigation effect of vegetation is more significant during the daytime, while showing a small value at night with an even temperature distribution, and (2) convection heat transfer is the primary cause, or one of the major causes, of differences in the USTE. Full article

The serious pollution of PM_2.5 caused by rapid urbanization in recent years has become an urgent problem to be solved in China. Annual and daily satellite-derived PM_2.5 datasets from 2001 to 2020 were used to analyze the temporal and spatial patterns of PM_2.5 in China. The regional and population exposure risks of the nation and of urban agglomerations were evaluated by exceedance frequency and population weight. The results indicated that the PM_2.5 concentrations of urban agglomerations decreased sharply from 2014 to 2020. The region with PM_2.5 concentrations less than 35 μg·m⁻³ accounted for 80.27% in China, and the average PM_2.5 concentrations in 8 urban agglomerations were less than 35 μg·m⁻³ in 2020. The spatial distribution pattern of PM_2.5 concentrations in China revealed higher concentrations to the east of the Hu Line and lower concentrations to the west. The annual regional exposure risk (RER) in China was at a high level, with a national average of 0.75, while the average of 14 urban agglomerations was as high as 0.86. Among the 14 urban agglomerations, the average annual RER was the highest in the Shandong Peninsula (0.99) and lowest in the Northern Tianshan Mountains (0.76). The RER in China has obvious seasonality; the most serious was in winter, and the least serious was in summer. The population exposure risk (PER) east of the Hu Line was significantly higher than that west of the Hu Line. The average PER was the highest in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (4.09) and lowest in the Northern Tianshan Mountains (0.71). The analysis of air pollution patterns and exposure risks in China and urban agglomerations in this study could provide scientific guidance for cities seeking to alleviate air pollution and prevent residents’ exposure risks. Full article

Canopy height is a fundamental parameter for determining forest ecosystem functions such as biodiversity and above-ground biomass. Previous studies examining the underlying patterns of the complex relationship between canopy height and its environmental and climatic determinants suffered from the scarcity of accurate canopy height measurements at large scales. NASA’s mission, the Global Ecosystem Dynamic Investigation (GEDI), has provided sampled observations of the forest vertical structure at near global scale since late 2018. The availability of such unprecedented measurements allows for examining the vertical structure of vegetation spatially and temporally. Herein, we explore the most influential climatic and environmental drivers of the canopy height in tropical forests. We examined different resampling resolutions of GEDI-based canopy height to approximate maximum canopy height over tropical forests across all of Malaysia. Moreover, we attempted to interpret the dynamics underlining the bivariate and multivariate relationships between canopy height and its climatic and topographic predictors including world climate data and topographic data. The approaches to analyzing these interactions included machine learning algorithms, namely, generalized linear regression, random forest and extreme gradient boosting with tree and Dart implementations. Water availability, represented as the difference between precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, annual mean temperature and elevation gradients were found to be the most influential determinants of canopy height in Malaysia’s tropical forest landscape. The patterns observed are in line with the reported global patterns and support the hydraulic limitation hypothesis and the previously reported negative trend for excessive water supply. Nevertheless, different breaking points for excessive water supply and elevation were identified in this study, and the canopy height relationship with water availability observed to be less significant for the mountainous forest on altitudes higher than 1000 m. This study provides insights into the influential factors of tree height and helps with better comprehending the variation in canopy height in tropical forests based on GEDI measurements, thereby supporting the development and interpretation of ecosystem modeling, forest management practices and monitoring forest response to climatic changes in montane forests. Full article

The Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) onboard the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F16, launched on 18 October 2003, was the first conical-scanning radiometer to combine the Special Sensor Microwave/Imagers (SSM/I), Special Sensor Microwave/Temperature Sounder (SSM/T), and the Special Sensor Microwave/Water Vapor Sounder (SSM/T2). Nearly 20 years of F16 SSMIS data are available to the general public, providing many opportunities to study the atmosphere at both the synoptic and decadal scales. However, data noise from complicated structures has occurred in the brightness temperature (TB) observations of lower atmospheric sounding (LAS) channels since 25 April 2013. We used a two-dimensional Fast Fourier Transform to analyze the characteristic features of data noise in cross-track and along-track directions. We found that the data noise is around 1–2 K and occurs at certain cross-track wavelengths ${(\Delta \lambda )}_{noise}$. A latitudinal variation was found for ${(\Delta \lambda )}_{noise}$. Due to noise interference, TB observations reflecting rain, clouds, tropical cyclone warm core, temperature, and water vapor distributions are not readily distinguishable, especially in channels above the middle troposphere (channels 4–7 and 24), whose dynamic TB range is smaller than low tropospheric channels 1–3. Examples are provided to show the impact of the proposed noise mitigation for conical-scanning TB observations to capture 3D structures of hurricanes directly. Once the noise in F16 SSMIS LAS channels from 25 April 2013to the present is eliminated, we may investigate the decadal change of many features of tropical cyclones derivable from these TB observations. Full article

Disturbances in forest ecosystems are expected to increase by the end of the twenty-first century. An understanding of these disturbed areas is critical to defining management measures to improve forest resilience. While some studies emphasize the importance of quick salvage logging, others emphasize the importance of the deadwood for biodiversity. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing is playing an important role to acquire information in these areas through the structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry process. However, the technique faces challenges due to the fundamental principle of SfM photogrammetry as a passive optical method. In this study, we investigated a UAV video-based technology called full motion video (FMV) to identify fallen and snapped trees in a windthrow area. We compared the performance of FMV and an orthomosaic, created by the SfM photogrammetry process, to manually identify fallen and snapped trees, using a ground survey as a reference. The results showed that FMV was able to identify both types of damaged trees due to the ability of video to deliver better context awareness compared to the orthomosaic, although providing lower position accuracy. In addition to its processing being simpler, FMV technology showed great potential to support the interpretation of conventional UAV remote sensing analysis and ground surveys, providing forest managers with fast and reliable information about damaged trees in windthrow areas. Full article

Peatland restoration aims to achieve pristine water pathway conditions to recover dispersed wetness, water quality, biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Restoration monitoring needs new methods for understanding the spatial effects of restoration in peatlands. We introduce an approach using high-resolution data produced with an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and supported by the available light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to reveal the hydrological impacts of elevation changes in peatlands due to restoration. The impacts were assessed by analyzing flow accumulation and the SAGA Wetness Index (SWI). UAS campaigns were implemented at two boreal minerotrophic peatland sites in degraded and restored states. Simultaneously, the control campaigns mapped pristine sites to reveal the method sensitivity of external factors. The results revealed that the data accuracy is sufficient for describing the primary elevation changes caused by excavation. The cell-wise root mean square error in elevation was on average 48 mm when two pristine UAS campaigns were compared with each other, and 98 mm when each UAS campaign was compared with the LiDAR data. Furthermore, spatial patterns of more subtle peat swelling and subsidence were found. The restorations were assessed as successful, as dispersing the flows increased the mean wetness by 2.9–6.9%, while the absolute changes at the pristine sites were 0.4–2.4%. The wetness also became more evenly distributed as the standard deviation decreased by 13–15% (a 3.1–3.6% change for pristine). The total length of the main flow routes increased by 25–37% (a 3.1–8.1% change for pristine), representing the increased dispersion and convolution of flow. The validity of the method was supported by the field-determined soil water content (SWC), which showed a statistically significant correlation (R² = 0.26–0.42) for the restoration sites but not for the control sites, possibly due to their upslope catchment areas being too small. Despite the uncertainties related to the heterogenic soil properties and complex groundwater interactions, we conclude the method to have potential for estimating changed flow paths and wetness following peatland restoration. Full article

The freeze–thaw (F-T) cycle of the active layer (AL) causes the “frost heave and thaw settlement” deformation of the terrain surface. Accurately identifying its amplitude and time characteristics is important for climate, hydrology, and ecology research in permafrost regions. We used Sentinel-1 SAR data and small baseline subset-interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SBAS-InSAR) technology to obtain the characteristics of F-T cycles in the Zonag Lake-Yanhu Lake permafrost-affected endorheic basin on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from 2017 to 2019. The results show that the seasonal deformation amplitude (SDA) in the study area mainly ranges from 0 to 60 mm, with an average value of 19 mm. The date of maximum frost heave (MFH) occurred between November 27th and March 21st of the following year, averaged in date of the year (DOY) 37. The maximum thaw settlement (MTS) occurred between July 25th and September 21st, averaged in DOY 225. The thawing duration is the thawing process lasting about 193 days. The spatial distribution differences in SDA, the date of MFH, and the date of MTS are relatively significant, but there is no apparent spatial difference in thawing duration. Although the SDA in the study area is mainly affected by the thermal state of permafrost, it still has the most apparent relationship with vegetation cover, the soil water content in AL, and active layer thickness. SDA has an apparent negative and positive correlation with the date of MFH and the date of MTS. In addition, due to the influence of soil texture and seasonal rivers, the seasonal deformation characteristics of the alluvial-diluvial area are different from those of the surrounding areas. This study provides a method for analyzing the F-T cycle of the AL using multi-temporal InSAR technology. Full article

In this paper, a tracking and pointing control system with dual-FSM (fast steering mirror) composite axis is proposed. It is applied to the target-tracking accuracy control in a 3D GISC LiDAR (three-dimensional ghost imaging LiDAR via sparsity constraint) system. The tracking and pointing imaging control system of the dual-FSM 3D GISC LiDAR proposed in this paper is a staring imaging method with multiple measurements, which mainly solves the problem of high-resolution remote-sensing imaging of high-speed moving targets when the technology is transformed into practical applications. In the research of this control system, firstly, we propose a method that combines motion decoupling and sensor decoupling to solve the mechanical coupling problem caused by the noncoaxial sensor installation of the FSM. Secondly, we suppress the inherent mechanical resonance of the FSM in the control system. Thirdly, we propose the optical path design of a dual-FSM 3D GISC LiDAR tracking imaging system to solve the problem of receiving aperture constraint. Finally, after sufficient experimental verification, our method is shown to successfully reduce the coupling from 7% to 0.6%, and the precision tracking bandwidth reaches 300 Hz. Moreover, when the distance between the GISC system and the target is 2.74 km and the target flight speed is 7 m/s, the tracking accuracy of the system is improved from 15.7 μrad (σ) to 2.2 μrad (σ), and at the same time, the system recognizes the target contour clearly. Our research is valuable to put the GISC technology into practical applications. Full article

Two-dimensional deformation estimates derived from Persistent Scatterer Interferometric (PSI) analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data can improve the characterisation of spatially and temporally varying deformation processes of Earth’s surface. In this study, we examine the applicability of Persistent Scatterer (PS) Line-Of-Sight (LOS) estimates in providing two-dimensional deformation information, focusing on the retrieval of the local surface-movement processes. Two Sentinel-1 image stacks, ascending and descending, acquired from 2015 to 2018, were analysed based on a single master interferometric approach. First, Interferometric SAR (InSAR) deformation signals were corrected for divergent plate spreading and the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) signals. To constrain errors due to rasterisation and interpolation of the pointwise deformation estimates, we applied a vector-based decomposition approach to solve the system of linear equations, resulting in 2D vertical and horizontal surface-deformation velocities at the PSs. We propose, herein, a two-step decomposition procedure that incorporates the Projected Local Incidence Angle (PLIA) to solve for the potential slope-deformation velocity. Our derived 2D velocities reveal spatially detailed movement patterns of the active Svínafellsjökull slope, which agree well with the independent GPS time-series measurements available for this area. Full article

The 40+ years-long sea surface temperature (SST) dataset from 4 km Global Area Coverage (GAC) data of the Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR/2s and/3s) flown onboard ten NOAA satellites (N07/09/11/12/14/15/16/17/18/19) has been created under the NOAA AVHRR GAC SST Reanalysis 2 (RAN2) Project. The data were reprocessed with the NOAA Advanced Clear Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) enterprise SST system. Two SST products are reported in the full ~3000 km AVHRR swath: ‘subskin’ (highly sensitive to true skin SST, but debiased with respect to in situ SST) and ‘depth’ (a closer proxy for in situ data, but with reduced sensitivity). The reprocessing methodology aims at close consistency of satellite SSTs with in situ SSTs, in an optimal retrieval domain. Long-term orbital and calibration trends were compensated by daily recalculation of regression coefficients using matchups with drifters and tropical moored buoys (supplemented by ships for N07/09), collected within limited time windows centered at the processed day. The nighttime Sun impingements on the sensor black body were mitigated by correcting the L1b calibration coefficients. The Earth view pixels contaminated with a stray light were excluded. Massive cold SST outliers caused by volcanic aerosols following three major eruptions were filtered out by a modified, more conservative ACSPO clear-sky mask. The RAN2 SSTs are available in three formats: swath L2P (144 10-min granules per 24 h interval) and two 0.02° gridded (uncollated L3U, also 144 granules/24 h; and collated L3C, two global maps per 24 h, one for day and one for the night). This paper evaluates the RAN2 SST dataset, with a focus on the L3C product and compares it with two other available AVHRR GAC L3C SST datasets, NOAA Pathfinder v5.3 and ESA Climate Change Initiative v2.1. Among the three datasets, the RAN2 covers the global ocean more completely and shows reduced regional and temporal biases, improved stability and consistency between different satellites, and in situ SSTs. Full article

Land-use change is supposed to exert significant effects on the spatio-temporal patterns of ecosystem carbon storage in arid regions, while the relative size of land-use change effect under future environmental change conditions is still less quantified. In this study, we combined a land-use change dataset with a satellite-based high-resolution biomass and soil organic carbon dataset to determine the role of land-use change in affecting ecosystem carbon storage from 1980 to 2050 in the Gansu province of China, using the MCE-CA-Markov and InVEST models. In addition, to quantify the relative size of the land-use change effect in comparison with other environmental drivers, we also considered the effects of climate change, CO₂ enrichment, and cropland and forest managements in the models. The results show that the ecosystem carbon storage in the Gansu province increased by 208.9 ± 99.85 Tg C from 1980 to 2020, 12.87% of which was caused by land-use change, and the rest was caused by climate change, CO₂ enrichment, and ecosystem managements. The land-use change-induced carbon sequestration was mainly associated with the land-use category conversion from farmland to grassland as well as from saline land and desert to farmland, driven by the grain-for-green projects in the Loess Plateau and oasis cultivation in the Hexi Corridor. Furthermore, it was projected that ecosystem carbon storage in the Gansu province from 2020 to 2050 will change from −14.69 ± 12.28 Tg C to 57.83 ± 53.42 Tg C (from 105.62 ± 51.83 Tg C to 177.03 ± 94.1 Tg C) for the natural development (ecological protection) scenario. By contrast, the land-use change was supposed to individually increase the carbon storage by 56.46 ± 9.82 (165.84 ± 40.06 Tg C) under the natural development (ecological protection) scenario, respectively. Our results highlight the importance of ecological protection and restoration in enhancing ecosystem carbon storage for arid regions, especially under future climate change conditions. Full article