This triennium report was prepared by Dr. Yoji Furuhama, Commission F Chair 1999-2002.

Commission F has the title "Wave Propagation and Remote Sensing (including radio-meteorology, radio-oceanography and remote sensing of non-ionized media)" and its terms of reference are: The Commission encourages:

1. The study of all aspects of wave propagation at all frequencies in a non-ionized environment: (i) wave propagation over the Earth’s surface, (ii) wave propagation in, and interaction with, the neutral atmosphere, (iii) wave interaction with the Earth’s surface, oceans, land and ice, (iv) wave propagation through, and scattering by, the subsurface medium, (v) characterization of the environment as it affects wave phenomena;
2. The application of the results of these studies, particularly in the areas of remote sensing and communications;
3. The appropriate co-operation with other URSI Commissions and other relevant organizations.

Prime responsibilities this triennium, as previously, have been shared between the Chairman (Dr. Yoji Furuhama) and Vice Chairman (Prof. Martti Hallikainen).

Setting up a scientific program for a triennium is the prime activity of an URSI Commission in order to achieve an exchange of ideas and research results among individual scientists throughout the world. This is carried out at General Assemblies and other meetings.

At General Assemblies, Commission F traditionally has compact invited-paper sessions on specific subjects and allows a broader allocation of contributed papers as posters, as confirmed at business meetings in the previous GA, because the Commission F Triennium Open Symposium covers all Commission F topic areas. Commission F selects a number of topics and convenors to cover specific matters of interest. The convenors are then given the responsibility to invite speakers to give a balance to scientific content and geographical representation.

In the current triennium, there is a Commission F Tutorial entitled "Recent Development of Data Processing in Polarimetric and Interferometric SAR" and there are 10 Commission F sessions (including one joint session led by Commission F) entitled: "Radiometeorology"(F1), "Climatic Parameters in Radiowave Propagation and their Modelling" (F2), " Millimetric, Sub-millimetric and Optical Wave Propagation Prediction" (F3), " Point to Point and Point to Multipoint Propagation " (F4), " Microwave Passive Remote Sensing" (F5), " Microwave Active Remote Sensing" (F6), " Polarimetric and Interferometric Techniques in Remote Sensing" (F7), "Active Microwave Remote Sensing of Ocean" (F8), "Passive Remote Sensing of Atmosphere" (F9), " Wave Propagation for Satellite Navigation and Mobile Services" (FG). There is also a poster session entitled "Wave Propagation and Remote Sensing" (FP) to cover the whole subject area of the commission.

And there are 9 joint sessions led by the other Commissions entitled: " Antennas in Mobile Communication Systems" (BCF), " Broadband Access Systems in Wireless Communication" (CAF), "Wave Propagation Modeling for Mobile Communication Systems" (CBF), "Adaption to Changing Radio Channel" (CF), "Channel Sounding in Mobile Communication Systems" (CFA), " Subsurface Remote Sensing and its Applications" (CFAB) (RRS chapter), "Interference in Communication" (EF), " Transionospheric signal Degradation" (GF), "Interference Mitigation in Radio Science" (JFC).

The sessions marked "RRS chapter" have chapters on that topic in the URSI book entitled "Review of Radio Science 1999-2002". The other RRS chapters of Commission F are "New Techniques in Microwave Radiometry for Earth Remote Sensing", " Wave Propagation for Multimedia Satellite Services", and "Remote Sensing of Inland and Coastal Waters".

As to other meetings, between GAs, Commission F had 5 Mode B meetings (financial support requested) and 17 Mode A meetings (no financial support requested). The mode B meetings comprised:

• MST9-COST76 Workshop: The Ninth International Workshop on Technical and Scientific Aspects of MST Radar combined with the COST-76 Final Profiler Workshop, Toulouse, France, March 13-17, 2000, (RSB, June 2000, pp.38-39). Web site: http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/mst/

There were 156 participants from 27 countries and 6 continents. A total of 195 papers were presented, whereof 76 were poster papers.

• CLIMPARA’01: Climatic Parameters in Radiowave Propagation Prediction, Budapest, Hungary, May 28 - 30, 2001. 

This is the fifth in a series of meetings which link closely with ITU-R Working Parties 3J and 3M. This meeting is a good example of collaborative work with ITU.

• Commission F Triennial Open Symposium, Garmisch, Germany, February 11-15, 2002

　 There were in all about 130 participants at the conference, from about 22 countries, and a total of

about 100 papers were presented.

• AP-RASC’01: 2001Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference, Tokyo, Japan, August 1-4, 2001, Web site: http://www.kurasc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ap-rasc/

There were 704 participants from 34 countries/regions, with 48 young scientists from 17

countries/regions, whose travelling expenses were partly granted by the Conference Organizing

Committee. A total of 599 regular papers were presented, whereof 195 were poster papers.

• MWRS’01: Specialist Meeting on Microwave Remote Sensing 2001, Boulder, Colorado, November 6-8, 2001, (RSB, March 2002, pp.57-58). 

This meeting combined the 8^th URSI Commission F symposium on Microwave Remote Sensing of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere and the 7^th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry. There were roughly 150 participants from 20 countries and a total of 153 papers including one keynote paper, 107 oral papers and 45 interactive papers.

In the list above, "RSB---" indicates the edition of Radio Science Bulletin and page numbers where reports have been given.

The Mode A meetings comprised:

• Radio Africa'99: Third Regional Workshop on Radiocommunication in Africa – Gaborone, Botswana, October 25-29,1999, (RSB, September 2000, pp.6-8).

• AP2000: Millennium Conference on Antennas & Propagation, Davos, Switzerland, April 9-14, 2000. Web site: http://www.estec.esa.nl/AP2000/
• EUSAR 2000: European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar, Munich, Germany, May 23-25, 2000, (RSB, March 2001, p.14). 
• GPR 2000: Eight International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, May 23-26, 2000, (RSB, June 2001 p. 19). Web site: http://www.cssip.uq.edu.au/gpr2000
• 33rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Warsaw, Poland, July 23-26, 2000, (RSB, June 2001 pp. 20-22).Web site: http://134.76.248.97/COSPAR/warsaw2000/index.html
• IGARSS 2000: International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2000, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, July 24-28, 2000
• MMET 2000: International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Electromagnetic Theory, Kharkov, Ukraine, September 12-15, 2000, (RSB, March 2001, pp.17-19). 
• Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communications, Waltham, MA, USA, November 6-8, 2000.
• ISAP 2000: International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation, Fukuoka, Japan, August 22-25, 2000, Web site: http://www.crl.go.jp/pub/ISAP2000

• EPMCC 2001: Fourth European Personal Mobile Communications Conference, Vienna, Austria, February 20-22, 2001, Web site: http://www.epmcc.com
• ICAP 2001: Eleventh International Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Manchester, UK, April 18-20, 2001, Web site: http://www.iee.org/Conf/ICAP
• "Remote Sensing for Monitoring Baltic Sea and Other Interior Basins", Kaliningrad, Russia, May 14-17, 2001, Web site: http://www.ire.rssi.ru
• MSMW' 2001: Fourth International Kharkov Symposium "Physics and Engineering of Millimeter and Submillimeter Waves", Kahrkov, Ukraine, June 4-9, 2001, (RSB, September 2001 pp. 19-21).Web site: http://www.ire.kharkov.ua/MSMW2001/msmw.htm
• IGARSS 2001: International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Sydney, Australia, July 9-13, 2001
• "ICEAA 2001, International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications", Turin, Italy, September 10-14, 2001.
• AMEREM 2002 Symposium: The American Electromagnetics 2002 Symposium, Annapolis, Maryland, USA, June 3-7, 2002
• EUSAR 2002, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Cologne, Germany, June 4-6, 2002

Communication with individual scientists and engineers has been a problem for Commission F as for some other Commissions. Specific communications to the 44 National Committee Official Representatives with 5 Observers has had only partial success as mentioned by the former Chair of Commission F. I believe that setting up and frequently refreshing a Commission F Home Page on the internet might improve publicity drastically.

The chapters for the Review of Radio Science as mentioned above will appear in the URSI publication "Modern Radio Science 2002", thanks are expressed to Prof. Adriano Camps, Prof. Calvin Swift, Prof. David Noon, Prof. Ram M. Narayanan, Dr. Bertram Arbesser-Rastburg, Dr. D.V. Rogers, Dr. Arnold Dekker, and Dr. Robert P. Bukata, and to Prof. Martti Hallikainen as Commission F Editor for RRS.

I am glad and honored to have served as Chairman.