Special Issue "NISAR Global Observations for Ecosystem Science and Applications"

Dear Colleagues,

The world’s growing population is experiencing unprecedented climate change through intensifying events, such as floods, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, insect infestations and related health effects. These impacts are putting pressure on our landscapes and ecosystems, which we use to generate food, fiber and energy globally. It is, therefore, imperative to systematically monitor global ecosystems to understand the connections between ecosystem responses and their management to create a sustainable future.

The NASA–ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), was designed to provide observations of global ecosystems and land surfaces to systematically quantify their state and changes thereof. NISAR’s unprecedented coverage in space and time could reveal biomass variability far more comprehensively than any other measurement method. The detailed observations are predicted to reveal information allowing us to better manage our resources, as well as to prepare for and cope with global change.

NISAR mission observations include global SAR imagery at L- and S-band frequencies, with multiple polarizations and repeat-pass interferometric measurements at very high spatial and temporal resolutions. The mission is planned to launch in 2023, starting with the provision of data for use in a variety of ecosystem sciences and applications, including mapping vegetation above ground biomass, wetland inundation, cropland extent and classification, freeze/thaw monitoring and soil moisture monitoring. In recent years, extensive studies have been conducted using airborne and satellite data to simulate and quantify the NISAR performance, developing algorithms for science and applications of data products, as well as calibration and validation experiments.

The proposed Special Issue calls for submissions presenting the results of NISAR-related research and the development of science algorithms for the ecosystem biophysical parameter retrieval, calibration and validation of science products, as well as applications of management and monitoring in different ecosystems. The aim of the Special Issue is to focus on the use of L- and S-band SAR time-series of observations, but it also welcomes synergistic studies and comparisons with other observations from SAR in different frequencies, passive microwave measurements, lidar and optical imagery.  

Topics To Be Covered

The broad topics of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• Forest and vegetation: management applications and modeling;
• Forest and vegetation: structure, biomass and carbon cycle;
• Forest and vegetation: disturbance and recovery;
• Agriculture: crop area and classification, crop biomass and water content;
• Wetlands and inundation: forest and nonforest wetlands and coastal ecosystems;
• Soil moisture: forests and nonforest ecosystems and croplands;
• SAR theoretical algorithms for ecosystem sciences and applications;
• SAR calibration and validation experiment results;
• NISAR and GEDI synergism for forest structure and biomass;
• NISAR synergism with passive microwave and optical observations;
• NISAR ecosystem product error analysis and uncertainty modeling.

Dr. Sassan Saatchi
Prof. Dr. Paul Siqueira
Dr. Anup Das
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.