2024 ISMS- Europe in Budapest

Venue

The 2024 International Soil Moisture School – Europe (ISMS-E) will be held July 14 - 17, in Hungary at the Budapest University of Technology and Economy (BME), in the heart of Europe along the shore of the Danube river.

About the International Soil Moisture School 

Welcome to the registration website for the 2024 International Soil Moisture School - Europe.   This website provides a brief agenda and provides a mechanism for apply for attending the school.

The School is intended for  PhD scholars, postdocs, and early career scientists looking to learn how to collect and utilize soil moisture resources from in situ and satellite sensors. 

The list of experts who shall deliver the sessions include: 

There is no registration fee for attending the school. Participant’s needs of meals, logging, and local transport are supplied by GRSS and Fulbright Hungary grants. Accepted participants are only required to finance round trip travel expenses to the school. There will also be an opportunity for the participants to present their research through posters to get feedback from the experts.

For students from the US we offer a limited number (about three) of travel grants thanks to the generous offer of the Fulbright Hungary office (fulbright.hu). Support is intended to award high potential future Fulbright applicants, students from the US to attend the school in Europe and get to know Hungary as possible destination for Fulbright application. 

The form seeks education information, and brief motivation to join the school. The organizing committee will review all nominations and select the participants. Considering logistical constraints, participation will be limited. This would also ensure maximum interactions between participants and experts.

The deadline for filling out application form will be May 16, 2024.  Once all applications have been received, the organizing committee will notify applicants of their acceptance latest by June 5th. Please don't do travel arrangements before you get accepted for the school.


Tentative Agenda:

Sunday, July 14 starting at 4PM: Registration and evening guest speaker

Monday, July 15: Hydrology and radiometry

Tuesday, July 16:  In situ measurements and RADAR basics

Wednesday, July 17 ending around 1 PM:  GNSS reflectometry and closing

Detailed Description of the School

High quality soil moisture data from the European Space Agency (ESA) Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and National Administration and Space Administration (NASA) Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) missions have been available for more than a decade. These data are being exploited for weather forecast, flood forecasts, drought monitoring and crop yield predictions. The high-resolution data from the ESA Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and upcoming L-band NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) and ESA ROSE-L will further the usage of high resolution soil moisture data for many applications, which require a spatial resolution of about 100 m. In addition, the reflectometry missions, such as the current NASA CYGNSS and future ESA HydroGNSS will augment the radiometer and SAR mission data with temporal revisit. These missions are based on three significant different technologies: radiometry, radar, and reflectometry, and will provide data with differing characteristics.

The strategies for calibration and validation of these mission datasets will also have different emphasis. So far, it has been challenging for young professionals to appreciate the details and vast differences among them. It is timely to synthesize key information of the three types of soil moisture missions in three specific areas:

1.) Science Applications, 

2.) Remote Sensing Algorithms, 

3.) in situ measurement techniques

together under the International Soil Moisture School platform to help young professionals to improve the data quality of the satellite datasets and further their science applications.

Sponsorship

Thanks to our sponsors we can offer funding for participants. 

Special travel grants are available for students from the US (see previous section)

Sign Up Today!

Fill out this form to sign up to participate for this great event! 

Deadline for registration is May 16, 2024.

The application form is closed. Thank you for your interest, we will review applications and notify nominees by begin of June 2024. Stay tuned. Hope to see you in Budapest.