Soil moisture retrieval from dense temporal series of C-band SAR data over agricultural sites

This paper investigates the use of dense time series of C-band SAR data (i.e. acquired with revisit time within 1-2 weeks) for the retrieval of volumetric soil moisture content (m_v) underneath agricultural crops. Its final aim is to contribute at assessing retrieval strategies for monitoring agricultural areas using near future frequent-revisit SAR missions, such as the forthcoming European Sentinel-1. A recently developed mγ retrieval algorithm is firstly presented and then applied to a time series of ASAR HH and HV data collected in 2006 over the agricultural DEMMIN site (Germany). The assessment of the algorithm is provided by comparing the SAR-derived m_v maps over the DEMMIN site with hydrologically modelled m_v maps. Results indicate that m_v can be retrieved with accuracy ranging between 5% and 6%.