Using European Space Agency expertise to grow better crops
22/02/2017

When you hear the words European Space Agency (ESA), ambitious missions to mars or spectacular crash-landings on comets may come to mind. What is less likely to occur is agriculture and improving crop yields. But earlier this month (6th-9th February 2017), I attended the 4th ESA Advanced Course on Radar Polarimetry taking place in ESA-ESRIN, Frascati (Italy) for those very reasons.
This free course was an excellent opportunity to meet experts in the field of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) and to learn more about the potentials and limitations of this technique. PoISAR is a measurement system based on Radar (an antenna on-board a satellite/plane emits an electromagnetic wave down the Earth and records the echo from the land surface) able to record signals at different polarisations…think of it as a camera recording different colours. These polarisations are sensitive to different characteristics (structure, water content, etc.) of the imaged scene.
As a research fellow in Remote Sensing within the Cranfield Soil and Agrifood Institute, I am often involved in research projects looking at detecting crop growth stages, or estimating yield. I was looking forward to learning more about PolSAR, which has many applications in Remote Sensing of vegetation, from measuring tree heights or biomass in the Amazon and the Boreal forests, to detecting objects concealed under vegetation.
Course review
Well, the course went beyond my expectations. It covered the principles of PolSAR, with a focus on advanced measurement techniques like polarimetric interferometry (Pol-InSAR) and polarimetric tomography (Pol-TomoSAR). The morning lectures were very informative, with engaging experts always happy to discuss the numerous questions of the audience (mainly PhD students and Post-Docs). The afternoon practical sessions were well thought out and very useful as teaching PolSAR often relies on a series of mathematical concepts. All this was punctuated by presentations on the latest Earth Observation missions and their scientific results. Beyond the great learning experience, the course was also a good platform for networking with other scientists in universities and in companies involved in SAR Remote Sensing.

The Colosseum, Rome
Frascati is only 30 minutes away from Rome, meaning I had time to make an express visit to the main historical sights (the Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Vatican), and a typical Italian ice cream of course!
But back to work! The ESA runs various free events within the context of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions program (SEOM). SEOM’s aims include stimulating research, training scientists, and promoting data use and results. In practice, this is done by regularly organising free workshops, short courses, and summer schools on various remote sensing topics covering land, ocean, atmosphere, and cryosphere. And if you miss an event, all the materials are usually made freely available on the ESA-SEOM website. I would definitely recommend this type of courses to any scientists interested in Earth Observation, from MSc students to lecturers.

The lecture room at ESA-ESRIN
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
Want to improve your reading skills?
Are you starting to wade through the mountains of reading that you have discovered for your project? You've searched the library databases, journals and printed collection and now have a reading list that stretches to ...
What a Mango Scientist Learned from Anthropy 23
Anthropy 23 and the ‘Emerging Leader’ title As a researcher, a setting like Anthropy was quite foreign to me. The conferences I have attended before were scientific/academic gatherings, where people presented data they had gathered ...
The beginning of my Cranfield journey as a Water student.
Joining Cranfield University is a dream come true! I made this decision based on what I had learnt from some of my colleagues from my home country who had studied here, and alumni of ...
Webinars and workshops running in December
Our Library Services staff run a wide range of webinars and in-person workshops to support your work and boost your success at Cranfield. They cover topics including using our databases effectively, referencing, study skills, the ...
World Soil Day 2023, 5 December – showcasing the Cranfield University Soilscapes Viewer tool
UN World Soil Day on 5 December is a vital reminder of the importance of soil in all our lives. Supporting growth of the food we eat; cleaning the water we drink; supporting the foundations ...
Collect your reservations 24/7 from the SOM Library locker
SOM Library customers, did you know that you can reserve items on Library Search and then pick them up at any time of the day or night from our SOM Library locker using your University ...