Radar (and optical) EO technology will undoubtedly become an integral part of grassland resource management within the next decade.
The availability of multi-temporal and multi-configuration C- and Lband data will increase with Sentinel-1A/B, and future planned SAR
missions such as the Radarsat Constellation and ALOS PALSAR-2. The
forthcoming availability of S-band data (NovaSAR-S) will present further opportunities, in addition to those already presented by X-band
sensors such as TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMed. These datasets will
be invaluable for future studies where further research on the effect of
specific management practices (e.g. cutting and grazing, drainage) on
the backscatter response is required. Ideally, dedicated field studies coincident with the time of image acquisition are needed in order to fully
understand and profile the scattering mechanisms caused by different
grassland conditions (e.g. density, height, moisture content) under
observation.