Monitoring and Study of Mountainous Regions in the Pyrenees Area Based on Polarimetric Radarsat-2 Data

Snow monitoring is essential for scientific and social hydrological applications. Information about spatial and temporal variability of snow parameters is needed for the modeling and forecasting of snow involved phenomena such as melt runoff, avalanche prediction and water resources forecasting.Active microwave remote sensing represents a valuable tool in the enhancement of snow monitoring providing appropriate spatial and temporal resolution and almost independence of weather conditions due to penetration capabilities of microwave radiation. This contribution represents the result of the research work conducted in the frame of the still on-going EOSWAN project, targeting the study of the feasibility of snow monitoring with C- band PolSAR data over mountainous regions in the Pyrenees area, North-Eastern Spain.