The WAVETRAX project aims to enhance climate monitoring by advancing our understanding of active microwave remote sensing and its response to rapid sub-daily land-atmosphere interactions. Seasonal changes in snow, soil moisture, and vegetation play a vital role in water resource availability, ecosystem health, and climate regulation. Through tower-based RADAR observations and satellite data analysis, WAVETRAX seeks to unravel complex interactions between microwaves and the Earth's surface, providing key insights into Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) such as soil moisture, snow water equivalent (SWE), and vegetation properties.

The project involves developing advanced tower-based RADAR sensors and conducting extensive field experiments to capture rapid sub-daily processes like water redistribution, dew formation, rainfall interception, and snow metamorphism. By leveraging a combination of physics-based models and machine learning techniques, WAVETRAX aims to create and test robust algorithms for accurately retrieving soil moisture, vegetation characteristics, and snow properties. These detailed ground-based observations will support space agencies in refining satellite retrieval algorithms, contributing to missions like Sentinel-1, NISAR, ROSE-L, SLAINTE, Hydroterra, and TSMM, ultimately improving global climate monitoring.

The WAVETRAX team comprises researchers from Ghent University, KU Leuven, UCLouvain, Boise State University, TUDelft, and SLF, bringing together expertise in radar technology, environmental science, and data analysis to achieve these objectives.