Key points:
- The use of the new tool called, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), may improve first responders’ ability to detect, predict, and respond to the spread of deadly forest fires.
- With SAR, researchers can create high-resolution two-dimensional or three-dimensional reconstructions of terrain for effective environmental mapping even during the night and inclement atmospheric events.
- In a future joint project, SAR will help map the entire Earth to provide the public with refined data about the effects of climate change on the planet’s crust.
Researchers are testing the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to help with wildfire detection. Their findings, presented in a poster session at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, could improve first responders’ ability to predict and respond to the spread of deadly forest fires.
Current remote sensing methods, like those that use optical sensors to study targets can be occluded by wildfire smoke and other atmospheric changes or be less useful at night. These limitations could have disastrous effects on agencies’ ability to gauge the number of resources or emergency service personnel needed to safely handle a large fire.
However, with the development of SAR, researchers can create high-resolution two-dimensional or three-dimensional reconstructions of terrain for effective environmental mapping. SAR technologies operate successfully during the day, night, and inclement atmospheric events, meaning scientists can finely measure an area’s surface geophysical, hydrological, and meteorological properties at key spatial distances with ease.
SAR can be used to track the entire life-cycle and aftermath of a wildfire. It has the potential to discern and monitor other factors that contribute to creating flame prone areas including the level of soil moisture in a region or various kinds of nearby vegetation.
“Scientists can now identify areas with conditions where everything is perfect for a burn, all the models say it will and sometimes it just doesn’t,” explained lead author Dustin Horton of The Ohio State University. “Because the whole wildfire process is extremely complex, a lot of the heavy lifting still relies on the mitigation work of firefighters.
In the future, aerial SAR-based platforms could be used to study Earth processes across greater scales. In early 2024, the NISAR mission—a joint collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will map the entire Earth to provide the public with refined data about the effects of climate change on the planet’s crust.