Surface soil moisture estimation using active microwave ERS wind scatterometer and SAR data

Author

Zribi, M. ; Le Hégarat-Mascle, S. ; Ottle, Catherine ; Kammoun, B. ; Guerin, C.

Author_Institution

CETP/IPSL, Velizy, France

Volume

2

fYear

2003

fDate

21-25 July 2003

Firstpage

1399

Abstract

This paper presents an original methodology to retrieve surface (< 5 cm) soil moisture over low vegetated regions using the two active microwave instruments of ERS satellite. The developed algorithm takes advantage of the multi-angular configuration and high temporal resolution of the Wind Scatterometer (WSC) combined with the SAR high spatial resolution. High correlations (R² greater than 0.8) are observed for three studied watersheds in France with an rms error smaller than 4% between real and retrieved moistures.

Keywords

hydrological techniques; microwave measurement; remote sensing by radar; soil; synthetic aperture radar; water resources; ERS satellite; France; SAR data; SAR high spatial resolution; WSC; Wind Scatterometer; active microwave instruments; continental water cycle; heat fluxes; high correlations; high temporal resolution; infiltration; low vegetated regions; microwave ERS wind scatterometer; multiangular configuration; precipitation; rms error; runoff; surface soil moisture estimation; watersheds; wind direction; wind speed; Electromagnetic heating; Instruments; Microwave theory and techniques; Radar measurements; Sea measurements; Sea surface; Soil measurements; Soil moisture; Spatial resolution; Surface soil;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2003. IGARSS '03. Proceedings. 2003 IEEE International

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7929-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2003.1294122

Filename

1294122