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Full catalog/NISAR_L1_RIFG_BETA_V1
NISAR_L1_RIFG_BETA_V1·v1·dataset

Raw radar phase maps for measuring ground shift (NISAR, beta)

NISAR Beta Range Doppler Wrapped Interferogram Product (Version 1)
land NASA ASF Level 1 active HDF5XMLYAMLPNG
In plain English

What it measures. A raw radar map of how the ground shifted between two satellite passes, stored as 'wrapped' phase patterns plus a measure of how reliable each spot is. The phase patterns relate to tiny movements of the land surface.

How it's made. Made by the NISAR radar satellite by comparing two radar images of the same area taken at different times and lining them up using an elevation model and orbit data; this is an early-stage beta product.

How & where you'd use it. A technical building-block input rather than a finished map. Specialists turn products like this into measurements of ground sinking, earthquakes, and landslides; most people would use the higher-level results instead.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › GEOMORPHIC LANDFORMS/PROCESSESSOLID EARTH › TECTONICSAGRICULTURE › FOREST SCIENCECRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETSCRYOSPHERE › FROZEN GROUND

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2025-10-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byNISAR (L-SAR, S-SAR)
  • Processing levelLevel 1
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF5, XML, YAML, PNG, KML, CSV, PDF
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) Range Doppler Wrapped Interferogram (RIFG) product represents the ellipsoid and topography flattened wrapped interferogram generated from two Level 1 Range-Doppler Single Look Complex (RSLC) products in the range-Doppler geometry of the earlier reference acquisition. The WGS84 ellipsoid is used as the reference surface for flat earth correction. The RIFG product contains a binary raster layer of complex numbers, i.e., the wrapped interferogram; its phase represents the wrapped interferometric phase in radians. The product also contains a binary raster layer of floating-point numbers representing the normalized interferometric correlation, i.e., the interferometric coherence magnitude. The wrapped interferogram and the interferometric coherence magnitude are multi-looked to a nominal posting of 30 m on the ground. No ionospheric phase screen correction layers are available with this product. The interferometric workflow producing RIFG products coregisters a pair of RSLC products using a Digital Elevation Model and the best available orbit ephemeris. This coregistration is refined using incoherent cross-correlation on the pair of coarsely coregistered RSLCs. The RIFG product includes the slant range and along-track sub-pixel offsets obtained from incoherent cross-correlation and used to generate the complex wrapped interferogram. If a Range Doppler Pixel Offsets (ROFF) product is available for the processed frame, the sub-pixel offset layers included in RIFG are obtained by optimally blending the multi-resolution offset layers included in ROFF. The products in this collection are considered Beta products and are intended to enable users to gain familiarity with the parameters and the data formats. Beta products are not intended for use in scientific research.

Get the data

nisar_l1_rifg_beta_v1_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="NISAR_L1_RIFG_BETA_V1",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ASF
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.