Test Site and Data

Test Site

A test site in Europe has been selected for the project.

The contractors are required to process a predefined 21km x 30km sub-area of the data stack containing known subsidence phenomena.

The work performed by the contractors will be “blind” in the sense that no in situ data will be available; the PSI-processing will be based solely on the available stack of SAR images.

As the PSI-techniques only measure relative movement, a reference PS/MP needs to be defined. For this purpose ESA will indicate a “stable” area within the test site. The contractors shall select a suitable PS/MP from within that area, which will then be used as the reference.

SAR Data

A stack of ERS and Envisat SAR images in either Single Look Complex (SLC) or Level 0 (Raw data) format (at the contractor’s request) shall be provided by ESA, along with so-called precise orbit information.

A maximum of 107 ERS SAR images and 10 Envisat ASAR images, covering the period May 1992 to May 2005, make up the dataset.

Validation Data

Datasets from a series of bi-yearly optical levelling surveys, conducted at the test site since 1990, will be available to the validation consortium for evaluation of the displacements detected by each participating team.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry