RADARS SURFACE AND SUBSURFACE IMAGING TECHNIQUES: A MUST LEARN TECHNIQUE FOR REMOTE SENSING GRADUATE STUDIES IN HYPER-ARID AREAS

Over the past decades, radar remote sensing techniques have provided new insights into the surface and subsurface properties of the Earth hyperarid areas exploring its climatic response and paleoclimatic conditions. This data is being complemented by a large volume of additional orbital scenes from several Radar imaging experiments (e.g. Sentinental, ALOS-2, Cosmoskymed, NiSAR). Today, the college of Geomatic Sciences and Surveying Engineering of the Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine Institute HASSAN II is the first educational institution in Morocco which provides a complete curriculum in Surveying, Mapping, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and GIS. The addition of advanced and applied Radar modules came to address the deficiency in the educational curriculum in Morocco for using the increasing number of radar satellites data products that represent the most dominant part of today Earth observation satellites for hyper-arid regions. Even though it is known that classical remote sensing, mostly using optical sensors has historically driven the research, educational and capacity building in Morocco in several fields as natural resources and environment, emphasis on radar techniques has been very slow to implement. Today, Radar imaging and probing techniques are being widely used for surface and subsurface mapping in semi-arid, arid and Hyper-arid environments making them one of the most efficient tools to monitor large-scale variations in water bodies. In this effort, we report on our radar remote sensing educational program for water mapping that has been initiated under a funding from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and how such new curriculum is helping students, water-professionals and researchers at the national level (as well as Regional level through cooperation) to better plan future monitoring of aquifers, soil moisture and desertification. Our experiment through room classes and field education using Ground Penetrating Radar has shown a substantial readiness for students and professional to implement these new methods in their research programs and how such methods reduce groundwater and desertification monitoring projects ambiguities and costs as well as time scale.