UMass Airborne and Tower-based Assets for Remote Sensing Monitoring and Measurement of Vegetation Structure and Hydrological Cycles

Paul Robert Siqueira, University of Massachusetts, siqueira@ecs.umass.edu (Presenter)
Tom Hartley, University of Massachusetts, hartley@engin.umass.edu
Gerard Ruiz Carregal, University of Massachusetts, gerard.ruiz.carregal@gmail.com
Thomas Millette, Mt. Holyoke College, tmillett@mtholyoke.edu
Mark Vanscoy, Harvard Forest, mvanscoy@fas.harvard.edu

As part of the upcoming NASA missions of NISAR and SWOT, the University of Massachusetts has built a number of prototype instruments for observing the vegetation canopy from an airborne platform and from a tram suspended above the tree canopy by two towers. The airborne instruments fly on a Cessna 206 and consist of a side-looking 35 GHz or 3.5 GHz interferometer and a nadir-looking 35 GHz profiling scatterometer. The profiling scatterometer makes similar profiles to that of airborne lidars and can be used to provide a more-robust weather capability or create a complementary measurement to instruments such as LVIS, GLiHT and GEDI.

This poster will also present results from an early-stage development for the construction of a above-canopy tram at the Harvard Forest. The tram supports a number of simple radiometric instruments and is being outfitted to house a light-weight terrestrial lidar and low-frequency radar. By being mounted on a tram, measurements sensitive to the hydrology, phenology, and growth of the forest can be made on time scales extending from hours to seasons to years.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Theme 3: Future research direction and priorities: perspectives relevant to the next decadal survey   (Mon 4:30 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Siqueira, Paul: Modeling and Evaluation of Polarimetric SAR and InSAR for Forest Structure Estimation ...details

Poster Location ID: 225