Anticipated applications potential of RADARSAT-2 data

In this paper we assess how RADARSAT-2's technical enhancements in terms of polarization, spatial resolution, look direction, and orbit control will impact the potential utility of its data products for 32 applications in the fields of agriculture, cartography, disaster management, forestry, geology, hydrology, oceans, and sea and land ice. Our assessment relies on bibliographic sources and, in particular, case studies drawn from ongoing applications development work at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing and the Canadian Ice Service. The applications potential of RADARSAT-2 data compared with that of RADARSAT-1 data is anticipated to improve in a major, moderate, and minor fashion for 3, 18, and 10 of the identified applications, respectively. For one of the applications considered, the increase in potential of RADARSAT-2 vis-à-vis RADARSAT-1 cannot be assessed because this application relies completely on RADARSAT-2's new full polarimetric capability.