Snow water equivalent estimation using high resolution SAR data

Estimating the characteristics of the snow cover is essential for managing hydroelectric dams and forecasting rises in water level in the spring. For the estimation of the Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) at fine scale and to make connections with the hydrology of small watershed, it is necessary to turn towards active microwave sensors like Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). This paper gives an overview of the research done for SWE estimation using SAR data. SWE could be estimated from C-band SAR in HH or VV polarization over farmland or in open coniferous forest. Methods are also developed using C and X-band polarimetric data. Recent studies shown the potential for mapping snow height or SWE using the phase difference between HH and VV polarization in X-band. The relevance of using double frequency data (X and Ku) has been shown, but there is no mission yet operating in the Ku-band into orbit.

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