On 13th August 2026, Wei Cao (D1), Professor Akira Hirose, Associate Professor Ryo Natsuaki and Yicheng Song (JSPS RPD, currently Project researcher in Nagoya Institute of Technology), Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems, received IEEE GRSS Symposium Prize Paper Award.
From left to right：Saibun Tjuatja IEEE GRSS President, Assoc.Prof. Natsuaki, Prof.Hirose and Giampaolo Ferraioli Symposium Awards Committee Chair
IEEE GRSS Symposium Prize Paper Award
IEEE GRSS Symposium Prize Paper Award is to recognize the best papers presented at the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) in prior year. IGARSS is the premier conference organized by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS). The candidate papers are evaluated in terms of content and impact on GRSS and by considering the following factors: quality, originality, clarity, timeliness of the contribution. IGARSS 2025 was held in Brisbane, Australia and the paper was presented among 1507 oral resentations. This is the third time since 2013 and the third time in the award's history since its inception in 1982 that a researcher affiliated with a Japanese organization has received this award.
About awarded research
In this study, we successfully detected urban flooded areas with precisely by the ensemble of the multi-spatiotemporal interferometric coherence data obtained from multiple observation directions using spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Conventional SAR-based flood detection based on change detection is suffered by strong back scatterers in urban areas. While interferometric coherence analysis is a technique highly sensitive to changes of dominant surface scatterers, standing buildings in the affected area keep high coherence, resulting in low accuracy in flood detection. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of interferometric coherence analysis using multi-spatiotemporal and -directional SAR data for detecting urban floods as well as the other disaster scenarios.
W. Cao, Y. Song, A. Hirose and R. Natsuaki. "Urban Flood Detection Using Ensemble of SAR Multi-Spatiotemporal Interferometric Coherence," In Proc. IGARSS 2025 - 2025 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, pp. 5778-5782, 2026.
IEEE GRSS Symposium Prize Paper Award