The Office of Research and Applications (ORA) of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been involved in research and applications development using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) since the launch of the L-band Seasat SAR in 1978. Since 1990, research projects have been conduced with C-band SAR data obtained from ERS-1/2, Radarsat-1, and recently ENVISAT. Measurement algorithms developed in this research activity are now being tested and evaluated within a number of applications demonstrations. The first of these is the Alaska SAR Demonstration (AKDEMO). Initiated in October 1999 and still running, this is a demonstration of near real-time SAR product derivation, dissemination, and utilization in Alaska. SAR-derived products include high-resolution wind speed and direction, vessel positions, and SAR imagery for ice, hydrologic, and meteorological analyses. These are being used and evaluated for hazardous coastal wind analysis, fisheries management and monitoring, monitoring of river ice break-up, flood monitoring, oil spill monitoring, polar mesoscale cyclone detection, and coastal and open-ocean sea ice analysis. Products are accessible to authorized users and in some cases to the general public via the Alaska SAR Demonstration web site and also via a web-based interactive data analysis tool called the World Wide Web Interactive Processing Environment (WIPE). In addition to the AKDEMO, there are four other applications demonstrations underway within NOAA/NESDIS. These are: (1) the Gulf of Mexico Experiment (GoMEx), a retrospective study of oil spill, ocean feature, and hazardous algal bloom detection in the Gulf of Mexico, (2) GhostNet, a study of the use of multi-platform satellite data in the location of convergence areas to aid in the search for derelict nets in the Northeast Pacific and Alaska waters, (3) Hurricane Watch, a study of the use of SAR imagery in hurricane research, and (4) near real-time monitoring of the Columbia River plume for use in salmon fishery studies. As a result of supporting these applications demonstrations, members of the Sea-surface Roughness Science Team at NESDIS have been involved in the full range of activities related to the long-range development of operational systems for SAR product production. These include specification of environmental product requirements for future sensors, research, algorithm development, product development and validation, applications demonstrations, and user training. A number of workshops and symposia have been sponsored by NOAA/NESDIS to help foster the development of operational applications of SAR and to educate the public on the use of this emerging technology. The latest of these is the 2nd Workshop on Coastal and Marine Applications of Wide-Swath SAR held in Svalbard Norway in September 2003. Nearing publication is a SAR Marine Users Manual, containing comprehensive explanations of the many applications of SAR data in the marine environment. This publication, sponsored by NOAA/NESDIS/ORA, has been authored by the international SAR research community. The focus of future activities of the Sea-surface Roughness Science Team will be on participating in the development of an international operational coastal and ocean products system which can be implemented at acquisition and product processing centers worldwide for the near real-time operational generation of SAR-derived products from all the available satellite SAR data.