About

BorealScat is a tower-based radar campaign for acquiring polarimetric and tomographic radar measurements at P-, L- and C-band over a hemi-boreal forest site in Remningstorp, Sweden. The experiment consists of a 50 m-high tower equipped with a radar system including 30 antennas. The site is also equipped with meteorological instruments and moisture sensors. The aim of the project is the temporal survey of radar signatures over time scales ranging from days to years in highly dynamic environmental conditions including strong winds, snow, freeze/thaw and leaf on/off cycles. This experiment will provide fundamental information about the electromagnetic scattering mechanisms in boreal forests at P, L and C frequency bands.
 

The P-band work will support the retrieval algorithm design of the SAR satellite Biomass, which was selected as the 7th Earth Explorer satellite by the European Space Agency. The L-band results will be beneficial for other SAR missions such as Tandem-L, ALOS-PALSAR 2/3 and ROSE-L, whereas the C-band work is in support of possible future companion satellites for Sentinel-1 and the geostationary SAR HydroTerra. BorealScat serves as the boreal forest counterpart of the TropiScat and AfriScat tower-based radar campaigns in tropical forests.
 

The project is run by the Division of Geoscience and  Remote Sensing at the Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology. It is also financially supported by the Hildur and Sven Wingquist Foundation for Forest Research, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Swedish National Space Board.