WG3: Data Exploration – Cal/Val, Fusion and Assimilation

Co-Chairs:

At the second workshop, WG-3 explored the following questions:

What initiatives are ongoing to collect regional or global data sets of field measurements of bio- and geo-physical parameters relevant to possible SAR science products?
What measures are being collected? How are they being collected and who is collecting them?
What are the challenges in making these field data accessible to the broad research community? For example data consistency/QC, IP restrictions/protecting graduate student research, metadata requirements.
Are there existing data portals that can be leveraged to gather these global/regional validation data sets and make them accessible?
How can space agencies and missions promote joint SAR cal/val activities?

The recommendations following the workshop include:

Coordination agreements between space agencies should include the collation and provision of regional and global bio- and geo-physical in situ data relevant to SAR science products
Space agencies should provide long-term support for installation and maintenance of SAR image calibration arrays
Multi-sensor and multi-agency calibration campaigns should be coordinated over the same natural and artificial target sites
Free and open sharing of all calibration/validation data and results should be provided through a single, reliable, and long-term data archive
The community should foster validation of high-level image products
The use of cloud platforms should be promoted to facilitate research and development of data assimilation and data fusion