ASF's Radiometric Terrain Corrected dataset provides worldwide terrestrial coverage, excluding Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and Asia north of 60 degrees latitude. It enables analysis of radiometry with topographic effects removed and topography with corrected layover and shadow. The product was made available by the Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) and was last updated in April 2011.
Use Cases
- Analyze radiometric backscatter values with topographic effects removed for land cover classification.
- Study terrain topography using data corrected for SAR-specific distortions like layover and shadow.
- Integrate the RTC-corrected SAR product with optical Landsat 8 imagery for multimodal land surface analysis.
Strengths
- Worldwide terrestrial coverage provides a broad spatial scope for analysis.
- Data is processed for both radiometric and terrain correction, reducing two major sources of SAR distortion.
Limitations
- Dataset excludes major polar and high-latitude regions (Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, Asia north of 60°).
- Data was last updated in 2011, which may limit its relevance for recent change detection studies.
Provenance
- Source
- Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF)
- Collection Method
- null
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Worldwide terrestrial coverage, excluding Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and Asia north of 60 degrees latitude.