Geography

Estimating Soil Moisture Profiles by Combining P-Band SAR with Hydrological Modeling

Document Type

Conference Paper

Abstract

A joint approach for estimating vertically continuous soil moisture profiles by combining P-band SAR polarimetry with soil hydrological modeling is proposed. The approach compares the decomposed soil scattering component from remotely sensed P-band SAR observations of NASA's Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS) mission with an ensemble of simulated counterparts based on the hydrological model HYDRUS-1D and the soil scattering model multi-layer small perturbation method (SPM). From the best fit between remote sensing and soil modeling, the most probable soil moisture profile can be retrieved. Estimated soil moisture profiles at individual monitoring stations across the U.S. are compared to in situ measurements, as well as the European ReAnalysis (ERA5) land and AirMOSS L4 products. Pearson's coefficient of determination between estimated and auxiliary products prove the overall feasibility of the proposed method with respective R2 of 0.92, 0.95, and 0.87. © 2023 IEEE.

Publication Title

International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)

Publication Date

7-16-2023

ISBN

9798350320107

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS52108.2023.10282246

Keywords

AirMOSS, HYDRUS-1D, multi-layer SPM, polarimetry, SAR, soil moisture profile

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