The project is to propose novel and effective methods to generate marine added-value products starting from remotely sensed measurements mainly coming from satellite radar sensors. Hence, the proposed piece of research is framed into the “Ocean & coastal zone” Dragon-6 thematic area. The various sub-topics addressed within this domain include the understanding of “marine dynamic environment”, the analysis of “sea surface characteristics”, the Earth Observation (EO) support for “marine disasters” management, the exploitation of radar measurements to observe “algae and phytoplankton” blooms. These applications are of paramount importance for both the scientific and the end-user communities especially in the management of coastal areas. The proposed added-value products are generated mainly from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite measurements (but include also microwave radiometer and scattereometer and ancillary optical measurements) and are devoted to open sea and coastal environments, even under extreme weather conditions.
The proposed piece of research will involve the development of tailored models of the processes under study combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI) methodologies that allow the interpretation and the processing of SAR measurements, collected under different imaging modes (including measurements acquired using SAR conventional and compact- polarimetric modes), to derive the above-mentioned user friendly added-value products in the following thematic domains: The latter include, but are not limited to, maps of targets at sea (including aquacultures, ships, wind farms, algae and aggregated of plastics) wetland coastal erosion/accretion trends due to both anthropogenic and natural phenomena, mapping marine pollutants, modelling, tracking, and forecasting extreme weather events as cyclones/typhoons
Water pollution
Macroalgae water pollution is addressed using L- and C-band multi-polarization SAR measurements along with optical imagery. A model is developed to explain the scattering mechanisms that are expected to rule algae-free and algae-covered backscatter.
Plastic pollution is addressed using X-band SAR imagery along with drone-based optical measurements through controlled experiments where plastic targets are deployed at sea and observed by satellite and drone measurements.
Target detection
The polSAR backscatter from PAZ imagery acquired over the Robin Riggs wind farm is analysed to estimate blade rotation using sub-aperture analysis.
Intertidal area monitoring
Coastal areas calling for intertidal flat are analysed using multi-frequency and multi-polarization SAR imagery to perform land classification.
Iceberg detection and tracking
The C33 iceberg which, calved from the Antarctica continental ice, drifted in the Terra Nova Bay for more than 1 month has been observed using dual-polarimetric SAR measurements.
All this matter will be detailed in the proposed piece of study.
