POLinSAR: Mapping Earth's natural resources from Space

More than 275 researchers from around the world gathered last week at the biennial POLinSAR and first Biomass science workshops hosted at ESA’s centre for Earth observation in Frascati, Italy. Polarimetric InSAR – or POLinSAR – is a remote sensing technique based on combining polarimetric and interferometric information in synthetic aperture radar images.

ESA reported: "One of the examples presented at the POLinSAR gathering shows how the height of Bangladeshi mangrove forest, which is an important local resource, can be mapped from space. This example uses data from the German TanDEM-X satellite along with POLinSAR." The technique of POLinSAR has matured considerably over recent years and scientists are now looking forward to further advances that will come once ESA’s Biomass mission is launched 2020.