<title>Sensitivity to soil moisture and roughness by a 5.3 GHz ground-based scatterometer</title>

Abstract

Six experiments on remote sensing of soil moisture and surface roughness were carried out over bare fields with a microwave scatterometer at a frequency of 5.3 GHz during February 1998 and January-April 2000. Other two experiments in May and June 2001 were conducted under controlled field condition for putting in evidence the radar response sensitivity to soil moisture. Data analysis indicates that a clear dependence of backscattering coefficients on soil moisture variations, with an average sensitivity of 0.25 dB/gr/cm3, when other parameters as roughness and incidence angle remain constant. Regarding surface roughness, a rougher field shows more suitable characteristics for inversion purposes. In fact, backscattering coefficients retain a good sensibility on soil moisture content, after the removal of incidence angle effects. These remote-sensing campaigns are part of an extensive activity where angular and polarization microwave signatures for airborne and ground based radars are collected on bare soils in different soil moisture and roughness conditions.© (2001) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.