Recent advances in fully polarimetric space-SAR sensor design and its applications

With the un-abating global population increase our natural resources are stressed as never before, and the global day/night monitoring of the terrestrial covers from the mesosphere to the lithosphere becomes all the more urgent. Microwave radar sensors are ideally suited for space imaging because those are almost weather independent, and microwaves propagate through the atmosphere with little deteriorating effects due to clouds, storms, rain, fog and haze. Globally humidity, haze and cloudiness are increasing at a rather rapid pace, whereas only 20 years ago all of those covered only 48% of the globe, today those have increased to about 62% and within another 20 years may exceed 80% for irreversible reasons; thus optical remote sensing from space especially in the tropical and sub-tropical vegetated belts will become rather ineffective, and microwave remote sensing technology must now be advanced strongly and most rapidly because operationally it is more rapidly available especially for disaster mitigation assistance.