Soil moisture detection with airborne passive and active microwave sensors

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Abstract
Distributed hydrological and ecological models on a local scale require information of the spatial distribution of the soil water content. The usefulness of different airborne imaging passive and active microwave sensors in obtaining soil moisture data is investigated. An experimental imaging 90 GHz radiometer, an X-band SLAR and an L-band SAR gathered data over two areas in Northern Germany. The radiometer- and radar-images of selected bare fields are studied with respect to the sensitivity to soil water content of the used sensors. Linear regression analyses between backscatter values and soil water content are performed for single measurement points. The X-band SLAR is found to give the best results. But speckle and ambiguities of the radar signature due to roughness and vegetation cover impede the application of the regression equation to the complete catchment. Thus, the investigated sensors are still limited as input sources to distributed hydrological models of complex areas.

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