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Geoinformatics_06-2009
article in order to determine the vsm. for the campaign, the observation zones were divided into cells of 200 x 200 meters. the soil permittivity was estimated for each of the cells calculating the reflectivity with lhcp reflected signal. the results showed a very good correlation between the estimated soil permittivity and the quadratic model that links this parameter with soil moisture. regarding vegetation observations, in the framework of an esa-funded project, a longterm experiment has been set up in monterspertoli, italy, in collaboration with the following italian research centres: centro telerilevamento a microonde, cetem, and istituto di fisica applicata "nello carrara", ifac. the main objective of this experiment, under development at the time of writing, is to study the effects of different land bio-geophysical parameters on gnss reflected signals. the experiment has been designed so that a variety of vegetation and soil moisture conditions can be observed. in order to be able to link variations in the field conditions with the recorded data, all possible parameters intervening in the scattering process are as controlled as possible. for that purpose, vegetation devel- voirs, the phase altimetry algorithm can also be used over ice in order to monitor its seasonal variation. in addition, due to the high penetrability of l-band signals on ice and dry snow, dielectric properties can be estimated with an analysis of the signal similar to the one used to measure soil moisture over soil. 6. future outlook the next developments of the oceanpal instrument are aimed at monitoring soil moisture and vegetation in order to bring the system to a fully operational status, as is currently the case for water level and state estimation. this instrument may also benefit from future research in the gnss-r field which is focused on a dedicated gnss-r space mission to confirm the theoretical predictions about the characteristics of these signals from space. marco caparrini marco.caparrini@starlab.es, area manager - space r&d alejandro egido alejandro.egido@starlab.es, researcher starlab, living science http://starlab.es figure 4: starlab premises in the observatori fabra, on the tibidabo mountain, overlooking barcelona. opment, soil brightness temperature, soil moisture, soil roughness and meteorological data measurements are taken continuously. 5. ice and snow applications despite the fact that it is not currently a research line in our company, it is worth mentioning the application of gnss-r to ice and snow monitoring. similar to the altimetric application of gnss-r over lakes and water reser- 42 september 2009
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