ИСТИНА

European Sentinel-1 satellite imaging radar provides especially valuable data for mapping of remote, hardly accessible and poorly studied Arctic regions. The possibility of data acquisition independently on cloud cover and daylight with high temporal resolution allows to reveal latent properties of landscapes and to monitor presumable changes due to global warming. The new data are now widely used to establish surface displacement of low-land areas caused by intense permafrost thawing in some regions. However, these studies usually cover relatively small areas. A large amount of data obtained during the first years of operation of this system allows an assessment of these data information content for research and mapping of the vast areas of the Arctic region. Our research is based on multitemporal Extra Wide Swath (EW) Ground Range Detected (GRD) Sentinei-1 images, with two case studies: 1- the Kotelny Island that is one the New Siberian Islands archipelago, located above 74 deg. North and 2- the Wrangel Island, which is the most eastern island in Arctic ocean, located above 71 deg. North. The methodology of multitemporal images processing is represented. The important stage of the research is the revealing the seasonal changes in backscattering for the typical landscapes of these Arctic islands, which are rendered to have distinctly different curves of the seasonal variation of backscattering. Integration of the multi-temporal radar images and the co-registered spatial data with the weather information allowed revealing the main factors influencing the backscatter values and its dynamics. The modified multitemporal radar images were created, which adapted for visual and automated images interpretation; then the classification of multitemporal SAR images was implemented. The resulted temporal curves of classes were associated with typical landscapes. the proposed method allows to define the boundaries of main landscapes features, basing on seasonal changes, and thus to create rather detailed maps (scale of 1:300 000 to 1:750 000) of natural landscapes which are characterized by different combination of the relief, vegetation and soils