Marcel El Hajj, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Research Interests

My research activities aim to use and promote remote sensing techniques for land surface applications. They consist in developing operational methods to elaborate products relevant to users and complementary to those available/expected in the Copernicus program and in other national and international programs. Linking my research activities to societal issues and adapting them to foster the link with the needs of users is one of my priorities. My research focuses on the use of satellite data (radar, optical, and Lidar) along with in situ measurements. In particular, it involves analyzing the signal as a function, on the one hand, the instrumental parameters and, on the other hand, the medium parameter, using physical or experimental approaches. General field of interest: increase the knowledge on the potential of Earth observation satellites for the characterization and monitoring of natural environments.

Selected Publications

  • Potential for the Detection of Irrigation Events on Maize Plots Using Sentinel-1 Soil Moisture Products

    M. Le Page, L. Jarlan, M.M. El Hajj, M. Zribi, N. Baghdadi, A. Boone. Remote Sensing 12, 1621 (2020) https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12101621

  • First Vegetation Optical Depth Mapping from Sentinel-1 C-band SAR Data over Crop Fields

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, J.-P. Wigneron, M. Zribi, C. Albergel, J.-C. Calvet, and I. Fayad. Remote Sensing 11, 2769 (2019)  https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11232769

  • Comparative analysis of the accuracy of surface soil moisture estimation from the C-and L-bands

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, and M. Zribi. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 82, 101888 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2019.05.021

  • Penetration Analysis of SAR Signals in the C and L Bands for Wheat, Maize, and Grasslands

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, H. Bazzi, M. Zribi. Remote Sensing 11, 31 (2019) doi: 10.3390/rs11010031

  • Mapping of aboveground biomass in Gabon

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, N. Labrière, J.-S. Bailly, and L. Villard. Comptes Rendus Geoscience (2019)  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crte.2019.01.001 

  • Mapping Paddy Rice Using Sentinel-1 SAR Time Series in Camargue, France

    H. Bazzi, N. Baghdadi, M. El Hajj, M. Zribi, D.H.T. Minh, E. Ndikumana, D. Courault, and H. Belhouchette. Remote Sensing 11, 887 (2019)  doi:10.3390/rs11070887

  • Evaluation of SMOS, SMAP, ASCAT and Sentinel-1 Soil Moisture Products at Sites in Southwestern France

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, M. Zribi, N. Rodríguez-Fernández, J.P. Wigneron, A. Al-Yaari, A. Al Bitar, C. Albergel, J.C. Calvet. Remote Sensing,  10, 569 (2018), doi:10.3390/rs9121292

  • Synergic Use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Images for Operational Soil Moisture Mapping at High Spatial Resolution over Agricultural Areas

    M. EL Hajj, N. Baghdadi, M. Zribi, and H. Bazzi. Remote Sensing, 9, 1292 (2017), doi:10.3390/rs9121292 

  • Interest of integrating spaceborne LiDAR data to derive accurate biomass estimates in high biomass forested areas

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, I. Fayad, G. Vieilledent, J.S. Bailly, D. Ho Tong Minh. Remote Sensing, 9 (3), 213, pp. 1-19 (2017), doi: 10.3390/rs9030213 

  • Integration of remote sensing derived parameters in crop models: application to the PILOTE model for hay production

    M. El Hajj, N. Baghdadi, B. Cheviron, G. Belaud, M. Zribi. Agricultural Water Management, vol. 176, pp. 67-79 (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.05.017


Education

  • Ph.D., Earth and Water Sciences, AgroParisTech, France, 2015
  • MS in Geomatics, AgroParisTech, France, 2011

Professional Profile

  • 2021 - Present: Postdoctoral fellow, WDRC, KAUST, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
  • 2019 - 2021: Researcher at ITK, France
  • 2016 - 2019: Research engineer/postdoc at Irstea (UMR TETIS), France
  • 2011 - 2012: Study engineer at Irstea (UMR TETIS), France

Scientific and Professional Membership

Guest editor for the special Issue "Remote Sensing for Land Surface Applications" (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/land_surface)

Research Interests Keywords

Synthetic aperture radar data Optical data LiDAR Soil moisture Biomass Crop mapping Crop parameters Crop modeling