Technology

InSAR- Interferometric Synthetic Aperture RADAR (Radio Detection And Ranging) is a powerful technique that will allow us to gather the necessary information to understand active Earth processes and environmental changes.

An InSAR satellite passing over a point before and after an earthquake can measure how the ground shifts. The phase of the radar wave changes between two passes if a point on the ground moves. An InSAR image of the point by point phase difference of the wave on the surface is used to create a map of the movement of the surface over time. InSAR can take observations through cloud cover, without sunlight, and can measure changes in the surface as small as the width of a pencil.

LIDAR- Light Detection And Ranging is very similar to RADAR, but it uses shorter wavelength energy transmitted in a much narrower beam. These attributes enable detailed observations of vegetation structure in tree canopies and accurate elevation measurements of ice sheets, glaciers and land topography. Not being dependent on sunlight, LIDAR measurements are made both during the day and at night and can be acquired through thin to moderate cloud cover.

LIDAR systems operate by transmitting laser pulses towards the Earth's surface and recording the "echo" of light reflected back to the instrument. The received signal measures the vertical distribution of surfaces illuminated by the laser pulse, including vegetation layers in forest canopies and the underlying ground. This data on the height and internal structure of forests provides very accurate information on the amount of carbon stored in forests and the character of the forest habitat.