- Imaging radar for mapping and monitoring of wetland ecosystems in the Chad Basin

Context and objectives

Wetlands in Africa in general, and in the proposed test zone in the Chad Basin in particular, are of paramount ecological and economical importance, but are threatened by population pressure, with serious implications for the local population and their environment.
Management authorities need up-to-date spatial data, that is able to provide an accurate picture of present land use en de extent of the flooded area. In view of the very dynamic nature of wetlands, research to characterise these spatio-temporal patterns is a considerable added value.
Research on the usefulness of imaging radar is being presented with the following objectives :
- Quantitative investigation of the radar backscatter signal in relation to wetland ecosystem components (aquatic, macrophytic, and terrestrial in the agricultural buffer zone) through statistical separability measures and testing against existing theoretical backscatter models.

- Optimisation of cartography of wetlands by development of procedures for image segmentation and classification : multi temporal classification and image fusion : visible/NIR and microwave data.