Harnessing NISAR: Next-generation radar observations for earth applications

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is becoming increasingly accessible through open datasets, including those from the newly launched NISAR mission. One of SAR’s main advantages is its ability to observe Earth's surface by day or night and under most weather conditions, making it especially valuable in persistently cloudy regions like the tropics or in high-latitude areas with long periods of darkness.

NISAR provides a wealth of data for both scientific research and practical applications, but it can be challenging for users to interpret and apply. This course is designed to help users understand the unique characteristics of NISAR data and learn how to access, visualize, and analyze them for various scientific and applied purposes.

This training consists of three sessions:

1. Introduction to the NISAR mission — covering its capabilities and data products, with a focus on amplitude data and its relevance for ecosystem monitoring. This session includes a demonstration of the use of NISAR data for flood detection and monitoring.
2. Data access and analysis tools — practical guidance on accessing, visualizing, and analyzing NISAR data by using resources available from Earthdata and the Alaska Satellite Facility, as well as ISRO's Bhoonidhi portal.
3. Interferometric SAR (InSAR) data — for identifying disaster risk areas and assessing damage following extreme events. The demonstration portion of this session focuses on one case study related to identifying areas at risk for landslides and another for assessing earthquakes.

Objectives

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Identify the characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of NISAR data.
• Recognize how NISAR data can be applied to decision-making related to flooding, agriculture, earthquakes, and landslides.
• Differentiate between the various NISAR data products and their applicability for different real-world use cases.
• Demonstrate how to access NISAR data and tools via the ASF DAAC platform to search, visualize, and analyze data for case studies related to floods, earthquakes, landslides, and agriculture.
• Generate a flood map, landslide risk map, and earthquake deformation map for an event of interest using provided Jupyter Notebooks and exporting them into a GIS framework (e.g. QGIS).
• Demonstrate how to access NISAR data via the ISRO Bhoonidhi platform, and use available tools for basic visualization and analysis.

Audience

• Remote sensing end users, geospatial analysts, academics, and students
• Managers from local, state, and federal government and NGOs
• Practitioners of remote sensing data
• The complete course consists of three 2-hour sessions, with Session 1 offered on July 2, Session 2 on July 9, and Session 3 on July 16.
• On each day, there are two opportunities to take the course (one in English, one in Spanish):
  • English Session: 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. EDT (UTC-4): https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/trainings/harnessing-nisar-next-generation-radar-observations-earth-applications
  • Spanish Session: 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. EDT (UTC-4): https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/es/learn/trainings/nisar-nuevas-observaciones-de-radar-para-aplicaciones-terrestres
• Each session will include a 30-minute live Q&A.