The Centre d’Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère - CESBIO - is a centre for research and education in Remote Sensing of the Biosphere created in january 1995. The centre is linked to four organisations: CNES (National Space Agency), CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) and the Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse. CESBIO has a total number of teaching staff and researchers including Post-doc and PhD students of about 120, who constitute the essential research potential on the study of the biosphere using Earth Observation.

CESBIO is organised into two scientific teams: 1) Physics and Remote Sensing, and 2) Eco-Hydrological Modelling. The two teams interact through different projects to addressing scientific questions or operational applications. CESBIO also contributes to the development and the promotion of space related tools and participates in the definition, the development and the scientific utilisation of space missions. CESBIO contributes to the SMOS mission and two missions under development: ESA Earth Explorer BIOMASS mission and the VENUS mission by CNES.

Principal Investigator:

Thuy Le Toan is a senior scientist at CESBIO. She is currently the Head of the Biomass research team at the Centre for the Study of the Biosphere from Space (CESBIO), France. She has expertise in SAR remote sensing of land surfaces for carbon assessment and for applications in forestry and vegetation. She is the P.I of the ESA Earth Explorer BIOMASS mission selected in may 2013 for launch in 2020. She is currently co-chairing the ESA’s BIOMASS Mission Advisory Group and is scientific member of the JAXA’s ALOS Kyoto and Carbon Initiative Team. She has been a Project Coordinator and Principal Investigator on many of the European SAR campaigns, and PI of several ERS, JERS-1, SIR-C/XSAR, RADARSAT projects. She has also been involved in numerous studies for the E.U., ESA, NASA, JAXA and national organisations on SAR remote sensing. She has been co-ordinator and member of EU projects. She is the author of several peer-reviewed journal articles and papers and sits on several review panels and scientific committees of International Symposia (IGARSS, PolInSAR.). She is currently a teacher of Remote Sensing at the University of Science and Technology in Hanoi.
In Ecopotential she contributes to WP3 and WP4.