Estimation of soil-type heterogeneity effects in the retrieval of soil moisture from radiobrightness

Author

Galantowicz, John F. ; Entekhabi, Dara ; Njoku, Eni G.

Author_Institution

Ralph M. Parsons Lab., MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

38

Issue

1

fYear

2000

fDate

1/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

312

Lastpage

315

Abstract

The authors estimate the magnitude of the beam-filling error due to soil-type heterogeneity in the determination of sensor-footprint average soil moisture (θ¯_f) retrieved from remote L-band radiometer measurements. Sets of randomly chosen soils are given uniform initial wetness and are subjected to atmospheric drying over 15 days in a numerical model. Results indicate that soil heterogeneity contributes less than 0.7% volumetric soil-moisture error (0.007 m_water³/m_soil³)

Keywords

hydrological techniques; moisture measurement; radiometry; remote sensing; soil; terrain mapping; L-band; UHF; beam-filling error; hydrology; land surface; measurement technique; microwave radiometry; radiobrightness; remote sensing; sensor-footprint; soil moisture; soil-type heterogeneity effect; spatial heterogeneity; terrain mapping; wetness; Atmospheric measurements; L-band; Permittivity; Radiometry; Rough surfaces; Soil measurements; Soil moisture; Temperature dependence; Temperature sensors; Vegetation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/36.823924

Filename

823924