BENGALURU: Officials in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said the information being obtained from the two radars – S-Band and L-Band – on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is empowering farmers, planners, non-governmental entities and policy makers with consistent information.
The ISRO team on Saturday made public information pertaining to the soil moisture products at 100m resolution obtained from NISAR data and termed it as a national asset for agriculture. The officials said the information with actionable intelligence is essential for sustainable agriculture, efficient irrigation and national food and water security.
The data showed multiple full-swath 100m soil moisture products over various agro-climatic regions of India. They assessed the semi-arid and moisture stress conditions in western India, the irrigation-driven viability of northern India, including the Indo-Gangetic plains, and the rain-fed agricultural zones of central India.
The physics-based algorithm, developed at Space Applications Centre, ensures scientific robustness and operational accuracy, officials said. “The results confirm the operational readiness, scalability and reliability of NISAR’s soil moisture products. They highlight the complementary strengths of the two frequencies, L-Band and S-Band, of NISAR for operational soil moisture retrieval. While L-band enables deeper penetration and improved sensitivity under vegetation and crop cover, S-band provides enhanced surface sensitivity and finer spatial detail,” the teams said.
NISAR is systematically imaging the Indian landmass using the two frequencies to deliver high-resolution and wide swath data.