Monitoring soil moisture to support risk reduction for the agriculture sector using RADARSAT-2

Author

McNairn, H. ; Merzouki, A. ; Pacheco, A.

Author_Institution

Agric. & Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada

fYear

2011

fDate

24-29 July 2011

Firstpage

3618

Lastpage

3621

Abstract

Monitoring the amount of moisture held in the soil is critical in the management of risk for the agriculture sector. Extremes in soil moisture can lead to devastating consequences. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has been acquiring RADARSAT-2 data since 2008 to evaluate the accuracy with which this sensor can provide soil moisture to assist with implementing risk reduction strategies for the Canadian agriculture sector. Using the calibrated Integral Equation Model, and a total of 16 data sets, field level soil moisture was estimated to a mean average error of 7.7%. At a regional scale, mean errors fell to 3.23%. The model was also able to detect wetting and drying events with inputs of RADARSAT-2 data.

Keywords

geophysical techniques; soil; Agri-Food; Canada; Canadian agriculture sector; Integral Equation Model; RADARSAT-2 data; agriculture sector; risk reduction strategies; soil moisture; Agriculture; Extraterrestrial measurements; Moisture; Moisture measurement; Monitoring; Soil measurements; Soil moisture; RADARSAT-2; calibrated IEM; soil moisture;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2011 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Vancouver, BC

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1003-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2011.6050007

Filename

6050007