Soil Moisture Mapping Using two Scenes SAR Imagery Without Knowing Information on Surface Parameters

Abstract

A new model was developed to monitor bare surface soil moisture on regional scale from the semi-empirical scattering model (Oh et al. 2002). This study carried out the field experiments almost simultaneously with the satellite overpass to validate the model. The results indicate that the model-estimated soil moisture agrees well with the measurements. This model requires no ground priori information and depends only on two radar images with dual co-polarization of hh-vv at different incidence angles. Because the model assumes that the soil characteristics (e.g. soil moisture and roughness) are constant, it is crucial that the two temporal images should be acquired on the same day or closely-spaced dates with no events of precipitation or irrigation and no occurrence of significant human activities.