FFSAR – Coastal Fully Focused SAR Altimetry and Innovative River Level Gauges for Coastal Monitoring

Fully Focused (FF) SAR Coastal [FFSAR-Coastal] is a project funded by ESA to apply the Fully Focussed SAR altimetry processor on Sentinel-3 data and evaluate its potential to make a significant new contribution to coastal and estuarine monitoring systems, when coupled with innovative water level gauges for validation. Two different environments will be considered:

• The Severn Estuary and river: A highly dynamic mixed tidal estuary environment, the confluence between a river and its estuary experiencing large tidal range and strong tidal currents
• The lower Rhone Delta and Camargue:  A low lying, flat river delta and wetland environment, susceptible to inundation and water level rise. By studying these two different environments, the potential applicability and benefits offered by FF SAR altimeter data in similar locations will be demonstrated.

Applications will focus on the benefits offered by the very high along-track resolution in water level and back scatter that can be provided through Fully Focussed SAR processing. User agencies and groups from the two regions will be consulted to identify gaps and priorities for monitoring requirements. Innovative in-situ water level gauges will be used to validate the satellite data. Time series will be provided by autonomous gauges placed at fixed locations, gauges mounted on drones will be used to provide water level profiles between the fixed locations and satellite tracks.

The Kick Off meeting was held on Friday 11 March 2022. If you are interested in accessing any of the data sets it will produce, please contact the Project Manager via the Project website.