EAGLE 2006 – multi-purpose, multi-angle and multi-sensor in-situ, airborne and space borne campaigns over grassland and forest

摘要

EAGLE2006 – an intensive field campaign forudthe advances in land surface hydrometeorological processesud– was carried out in the Netherlands from 8th to 18th Juneud2006, involving 16 institutions with in total 67 people fromud16 different countries. In addition to the acquisition of multiangleudand multi-sensor satellite data, several airborne instrumentsud– an optical imaging sensor, an imaging microwave radiometer,udand a flux airplane – were deployed and extensive ground measurements were conducted over one grasslandudsite at Cabauw and two forest sites at Loobos and Speulderbosudin the central part of the Netherlands. The generated dataudset is both unique and urgently needed for the developmentudand validation of models and inversion algorithms for quantitativeudland surface parameter estimation and land surfaceudhydrometeorological process studies. EAGLE2006 was ledudby the Department of Water Resources of the InternationaludInstitute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observationud(ITC) and originated from the combination of a numberudof initiatives supported by different funding agencies.udThe objectives of the EAGLE2006 campaign were closely related to the objectives of other European Space Agencyud(ESA) campaign activities (SPARC2004, SEN2FLEX2005udand especially AGRISAR2006). However, one important objectiveudof the EAGLE2006 campaign is to build up a dataudbase for the investigation and validation of the retrieval ofudbio-geophysical parameters, obtained at different radar frequenciesud(X-, C- and L-Band) and at hyperspectral opticaludand thermal bands acquired simultaneously over contrastingudvegetated fields (forest and grassland). As such, all activitiesudwere related to algorithm development for future satelliteudmissions such as the Sentinels and for validation of retrievalsudof land surface parameters with optical and thermaludand microwave sensors onboard current and future satelliteudmissions. This contribution describes the campaign objectivesudand provides an overview of the airborne and field campaignuddataset. This dataset is available for scientific investigationsudand can be accessed on the ESA Principal InvestigatorudPortal http://eopi.esa.int.