OPERA Workshops

OPERA workshops will be held for OPERA stakeholders on a regular basis. These workshops will provide external partners with updates on the status of both the overall project and its specific products.

In general the OPERA workshops will cover the following topics:

• OPERA programmatic updates (all workshops)
• Interaction with users to identify any changes in the needs and associated applications
• Detailed updates on algorithm development and briefings on calibration and validation approaches
• Data access information through the NASA DAACs
• Interactive whitepaper demonstration, explanation of metadata, strengths and limitations, etc.
• Invited talks by OPERA stakeholders on their applications, cal/val findings
• Conference-style oral and poster science presentations

The OPERA workshops are hybrid (remote and in person) participation. For in person workshops, travel grants will be offered to select participants within the federal statute and regulations in order to improve participation from diverse communities. The workshop activities will be recorded and made available online to reach a larger audience.

July 19, 2024, Hybrid workshop in San Diego, CA (exact venue TBD), immediately following the annual ESRI User Conference (July 15-19, 2024).

In this OPERA workshop, we will introduce the upcoming OPERA Dynamic Surface Water eXtent from NISAR (DSWx-NI) and Surface Displacement from NISAR (DISP-NI) products, and provide updates of OPERA data products that are in production and those that are in the near-final phase prior to their operational start (described in previous workshops). We will also have a poster session for all in person attendees and oral presentations by federal stakeholders who are using (or plan to use) OPERA products.

In addition, we offer technical guidance and expert consultations to our valued federal agency end-users in using OPERA data products to address their analysis and observation needs and ensure integration into decision making. We aim to hold these consultations prior to the fourth workshop. Federal agency end-users who are interested in this offer are encouraged to contact the OPERA team (opera.sep@jpl.nasa.gov).

June 27, 2023, at 9am-3pm Pacific (12-6pm Eastern), Hybrid workshop at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Introduced upcoming OPERA Products including the Sentinel-1-based Dynamic Surface Water eXtent (DSWx-S1) and Sentinel-1-based Surface Displacement (DISP-S1) and provided validation updates on Sentinel-1-based Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC-S1) SAR Backscatter and Sentinel-1-based Coregistrated Single Look Complex (CSLC-S1) products.

September 2, 2022, at 9am-1pm Pacific (12-4pm Eastern), Hybrid workshop at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

Introduced OPERA Sentinel-1-based Radiometric Terrain Corrected (RTC-S1) SAR Backscatter and Sentinel-1-based Coregistrated Single Look Complex (CSLC-S1) products and provided updates on Surface Water Extent and Disturbance products.

February 4, 2022, at 10am-12pm Pacific (1-3pm Eastern), virtual workshop.

Introduced the OPERA project and provided both an overview and updates for the Surface Water Extent & Surface Disturbance Product.