

The area of the research is a part of the Landscape Park and belongs to agri–environment ecosystem of South-West Poland. The study on vegetation growth conditions has been carried out applying optical data from TERRA/ASTER, TERRA/MODIS, and ENVISAT/MERIS as well as microwave data from ENVISAT/ASAR. In situ data collected at the time of satellite observations were as follows: soil moisture, leaf area index, biomass, vegetation moisture, crop height, types of crop and its actual vegetation phenological stage. The supervised maximum likelihood classification method was applied to multispectral optical and multitemporal microwave satellite data to distinguish different crop type. From optical satellite data different vegetation and soil moisture indices have been calculated on the basis of surface reflectance and surface temperature supported with meteorological data. Assessment of heat fluxes applying surface temperature calculated from TERRA/ASTER and TERRA/MODIS images was very important for water balance assessment. From microwave satellite data, registered in various polarisations and incidence angles, the backscattering coefficients have been derived and related to soil moisture. It was presented that the classification obtained from ENVISAT ASAR VV HH IS4 and IS6 and assessment of soil moisture yield into good results close to these obtained from optical data, what is very important in regard to often cloud cover. It was very important to get evapotranspiration from optical data. The results should be implemented into management of agri–environment ecosystem. ENVISAT images have been obtained from ESA for CAT-1 1427 project, TERRA images for the national project 4T12E02630.