Objectives
Current research in understanding and predicting phenomena related to the global water cycle has emphasized the need for better descriptions of the land surface parameters that govern water and energy exchanges between the surface and atmosphere, and for long-term measurements of these parameters over a range of spatial and temporal scales.
The recent U.S. NRC Earth Science Decadal Survey Report recommends a number of future U.S. water cycle-related satellite missions that would carry microwave sensors to provide measurements of land surface geophysical phenomena. These missions would build on other current and planned U.S. and international missions. Research is needed to develop improved methods for extracting geophysical information from mission data for hydrologic science and applications. Needed research areas include:
- Development of improved models of microwave emission and scattering at the land surface
- Development of efficient inverse methods and retrieval schemes with practical application to satellite data
- Development of robust schemes for coupling remote sensing observables and land surface models for hydrologic research and forecasting
- Integration and analysis of historical satellite microwave data as benchmarks for new mission studies
In order to stimulate and focus research in these areas this workshop aims to bring together researchers in the microwave remote sensing and terrestrial hydrology communities to review the state of the art in active and passive microwave sensing related to terrestrial hydrology, exchange ideas related to new research and applications directions, and promote coordination of new research activities.
The workshop format is designed to stimulate discussion of crosscutting themes and integrated activities, such as defining modeling frameworks for integrating data from the various missions and pursuing other approaches for integrating multi-sensor data to better quantify the land hydrologic cycle. While the emphasis will be on microwave techniques, integration of other remotely sensed data with microwave data and land surface models will also be addressed.
Contributed Posters
Posters are invited on all aspects of microwave remote sensing related to the above topics.
A special issue of IEEE J-STARS is planned containing papers arising from the workshop (oral and poster presentations). In addition, a workshop report will be generated summarizing the discussion sessions, with recommendations for future research and coordination activities.
