Active Microwave Instrument – Synthetic Aperture Radar (AMI-SAR) data from the European Remote-Sensing satellites 1 and 2 between 1995 and 1999 were acquired by the Landmap project from QinetiQ and are available for large areas of the UK. Data from the individual satellites are available, but also coherence images from when both satellites were operational and orbiting in tandem, which show the difference between two images in the time between both satellites passing over (around 1 day).

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Landmap service which ran from 2001 to July 2014 collected and hosted a large amount of earth observation data for the majority of the UK. After removal of JISC funding in 2013, the Landmap service is no longer operational, with the data now held at the NEODC.

The ERS data are available to UK academics and students. To apply for access, please

1. Register as a NEODC user. If you already are a NEODC registered user, skip this step. If you have forgotten your NEODC user ID and/or password, please contact the NEODC helpdesk at neodc@rl.ac.uk.
2. Apply for access to the Landmap data. Application involves the agreement with the Landmap terms of use.

Software

Erdas ER viewer, available free of charge, can be used to open raster image formats such as TIFF, GeoTiff, IMG, ECW, ERS, ALG, DAT and many more, and is capable of handling large file sizes.

Basic ERS & Envisat (A) ATSR and Meris Toolbox (BEAM): BEAM is an open-source toolbox and development platform for viewing, analysing and processing of remote sensing raster data. Originally developed to facilitate the utilisation of image data from Envisat's optical instruments, BEAM now supports a growing number of other raster data formats such as GeoTIFF and NetCDF as well as data formats of other Earth Observation (EO) sensors such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), AVNIR, Polarised Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (PRISM) and Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS). Various data and algorithms are supported by dedicated extension plug-ins.

NEST (Next ESA SAR Toolbox) is an ESA open source toolbox under the GNU GPL license for reading, processing, analysing and visualising ESA (ERS-1/2, ENVISAT, SENTINEL-1) and other spaceborne SAR data (TerraSAR-X, RADARSAT 1-2, COSMO-SkyMed, JERS-1, ALOS PALSAR) processed to Level-1 or higher.

Links to further information

• The Landmap project ERS website, this website may be offline after 1st August 2014 due to a withdrawal of JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) funding, see below for an archived version of the site
• An archived version of the Landmap project ERS site, hosted by the Internet Archive project
• The ESA website on the ERS satellites
• ESA information on SAR
• Detailed information about the ERS satellites and their SARs
• The website for QinetiQ

If you have queries about these pages or about obtaining the ERS data from the NEODC then you should contact the NEODC Support team. Your query should be answered within one working day. When follow-up work is required, the NEODC support team will carry out the work as quickly and efficiently as possible.