Our goal is to establish a network that facilitates and strengthens co-operation between upstream and downstream users, to bolster the Dutch position in agricultural vegetation monitoring using microwaves.
MINERVA will inventory opportunities from future (candidate and operational) missions and analyse breakthrough technologies in the field of microwave mission development. Operational missions like Sentinel-1, AMSR and the Metop series provide the continuity and reliability essential for long-term monitoring, analysis of extremes and climate change impacts on agriculture on food security. For MINERVA, they will provide an observational record with which to test new hypotheses and develop core understanding. Candidate missions like CIMR, Harmony and HydroTerra, and commercial missions offer exciting new opportunities for vegetation monitoring e.g. synchronous multi-frequency observations, multi-static observations, sub-daily measurements and fast revisit interferometry.
PIPP project proposal.
Improved fundamental process understanding is essential to maximize the potential value of future data for a wide range of applications related to agriculture and food security. Research activities will prioritize topics in which Dutch companies and researchnstitutions have a competitive edge, and address the requirements of downstream users.
Examples include disentangling soil and vegetation effects, understanding vegetation water dynamics, retrieval of bio-geophysical variables at scales required by users, and synergies between optical and radar data. Pilot data for feasibility studies will be collected during ongoing experimental campaigns. In addition, we will mobilize existing in-situ networks to
form a national supersite to support proof-of-concept studies, and calibration/validation activities. The latest developments in eScience (e.g. big data analytics, machine learning) will also be embraced.
