Soil moisture retrieval through a merging of multi-temporal L-band SAR data and hydrologic modelling

• Main Authors: F. Mattia, G. Satalino, V. R. N. Pauwels, A. Loew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2009-03-01
• Series: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
• Online Access: http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/13/343/2009/hess-13-343-2009.pdf
• ISSN: 1027-5606; 1607-7938

The objective of the study is to investigate the potential of retrieving superficial soil moisture content (<i>m<sub>v</sub></i>) from multi-temporal L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data and hydrologic modelling. The study focuses on assessing the performances of an L-band SAR retrieval algorithm intended for agricultural areas and for watershed spatial scales (e.g. from 100 to 10 000 km<sup>2</sup>). The algorithm transforms temporal series of L-band SAR data into soil moisture contents by using a constrained minimization technique integrating a priori information on soil parameters. The rationale of the approach consists of exploiting soil moisture predictions, obtained at coarse spatial resolution (e.g. 15–30 km<sup>2</sup>) by point scale hydrologic models (or by simplified estimators), as a priori information for the SAR retrieval algorithm that provides soil moisture maps at high spatial resolution (e.g. 0.01 km<sup>2</sup>). In the present form, the retrieval algorithm applies to cereal fields and has been assessed on simulated and experimental data. The latter were acquired by the airborne E-SAR system during the AgriSAR campaign carried out over the Demmin site (Northern Germany) in 2006. Results indicate that the retrieval algorithm always improves the a priori information on soil moisture content though the improvement may be marginal when the accuracy of prior <i>m<sub>v</sub></i> estimates is better than 5%.