| Summary: | Climate change is drastically affecting agricultural practices and the Arctic environment as warmer conditions and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. Agricultural practices are having to adapt to longer periods of drier conditions and heavy rain events. At the same time, warmer global temperatures and decreasing sea ice concentrations are allowing for increased marine traffic throughout the year, posing the threat of an oil spill. The application of microwave radar systems for environmental monitoring is not a new practice but the conditions that are being monitored are continuing to evolve with the changing climate. This thesis aims to determine the usability of C-band (5.5GHz) and L-band (1.26 GHz) ground-based polarimetric microwave radar systems for agricultural monitoring (C-band and L-band) as well as detecting diesel fuel in the Arctic Ocean (C-band). Findings of the agricultural monitoring study suggest that both C-band and L-band scatterometers can detect changes in vegetation height, while C-band was only correlated with soil moisture at 5cm whereas L-band had correlations at all soil moisture depths that were monitored. Results of the diesel fuel study determined that there were significant changes to received C-band backscatter during the transition from open water to sea ice, as well as when diesel fuel emerged to the surface of the sea ice. These studies will contribute to a baseline of data that can be used to better understand satellite data for agricultural remote sensing purposes. The results of the agricultural remote sensing studies l further the understanding of the sensitivity of L-band microwave radar to vegetation cover as well as the optimal radar system parameters to determine soil moisture from radar backscatter values. The outcome of the diesel-contaminated sea ice experiments will improve and aid northern Canadian communities’ preparedness and response protocols to an oil spill in the Arctic marine environment in partnership with the Canadian Standards ...
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