Assimilating satellite-derived soil moisture products into a distributed hydrological model

Predictions of hydrological models are highly uncertain due to both the nature of the modelled system and the meteorological forcings. Soil moisture information derived from satellite data can help to reduce this uncertainty. Indeed, data assimilation techniques offer the possibility to dynamically correct the model evolution in order to improve the model output. However, several questions concerning the use of these techniques are still without answer. The aim of this work is trying to better understand what conditions allow a successful assimilation of satellite soil moisture products. To this end, three different products, along with several options in terms of filter design, were tested and their impact on data assimilation performances was evaluated.