ESA is running a Phase B study for TerraSAR-L, the first European L-band SAR mission. Despite the Japanese Earth Resource Satellite (JERS) program and NASA’s SIR-C mission, the access experience with L-band applications especially in Europe is not as well developed as for C-band. This project proposes activities to demonstrate with JERS SAR data the understanding and the potential of L-band SAR in dedicated application areas:

• Kyoto protocol monitoring: mapping of forest/non-forest with individual L-band SAR data sets, assessment of changes in forest cover from multi-temporal sequences of L-band SAR data, comparison with ground truth information and C-Band SAR data;
• Landslide deformation monitoring: large-scale survey of landslide motion and localscale monitoring of landslide displacement, comparison with ground truth information and C-Band SAR data;
• Further applications related to climate change: literature review on L-Band contributions for forest standing biomass estimation, mapping of the extent and seasonal change of wetlands, estimation of ice sheet and glacier flow rates, and monitoring of sea ice extent and sea ice age.