Improve Soil Moisture Estimation Research Articles

Improved soil moisture estimation and detection of irrigation signal by incorporating SMAP soil moisture into the Indian Land Data Assimilation System (ILDAS)

Land surface models have facilitated the estimation of soil moisture over a range of spatiotemporal scales. However, limitations in model parameterization and under-representation of anthropogenic processes restrict their ability to estimate local-scale soil moisture variability, especially over irrigated areas. Assimilation of satellite-based soil moisture retrievals into land surface models can be a viable approach to overcome these constraints, specially over highly irrigated countries such as India, where such applications are rare. Additionally, large-scale validation of modeled soil moisture has been limited over India till now due to lack of a representative station network. By assimilating Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP)-based estimates into the state-of-the-art Indian Land Data Assimilation System (ILDAS) and combining with a new soil moisture station network of more than 200 stations, this study demonstrates improved soil moisture estimations and capture of irrigation signals over the region. The Noah-MP land surface model is forced by multiple local and global meteorological datasets and Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) is used for assimilation of soil moisture. Comparison of open-loop and data assimilated soil moisture against station soil moisture data shows relative spatial mean improvement of 0.0178 in correlation and 0.0029 m3/m3 in RMSE. Further statistical comparison with in-situ data has also shown better results over most of the stations, as evident from improved correlations and reduced unbiased RMSE after assimilation. Finally, the climatology of soil moisture over the different irrigation fractions reveals that data assimilated outputs over irrigated grid cells tend to have higher soil moisture during dry winter season, demonstrating the ability to capture irrigation signals. These findings quantify the value of data assimilation in improving soil moisture estimates and the ability to capture unmodeled processes such as irrigation, which lays the science groundwork for upcoming space missions such as NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR).

Estimation of Surface and Subsurface Soil Moisture Using Microwave Remote Sensing: A Typical Analysis

Accurate measurement and monitoring of surface and subsurface soil moisture is essential for understanding hydrological processes, crop growth modeling, crop water requirement, and climate studies. Accurate measurement of the soil moisture content (SMC) in the root zone is essential for precise irrigation authority and plant water stress evaluation. However, the existing passive microwave satellite missions, Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), that operate at L-band, can only estimate the top 5 cm of soil moisture. Microwave remote sensing has proven to be a valuable tool for non-invasive soil moisture estimation. This research aims to investigate and develop a methodology for estimating surface and subsurface soil moisture using microwave data from Sentinel-1. The study was conducted to establish the relationship between surface & the backscatter coefficient derived using the Sentinel-1 SAR microwave remote sensing satellite imagery, and relationship between surface and subsurface soil moisture at different depths, in the Godhra region. Two seasons namely summer (Zaid) and monsoon (Kharif) were taken into consideration to build up the relationship between surface soil moisture and co-polarization backscatter coefficient ( For the summer (Zaid) and monsoon (Kharif) seasons, the co-polarization backscatter coefficient ( and surface soil moisture (0-5, cm) were found to have a correlation in terms of R2 as 0.91 and 0.90, respectively. The study explores the relationship between microwave signals and surface soil moisture content (0-5, cm) and then the relationship between surface soil moisture and soil moisture at various depths were also modeled thereby contributing to improved soil moisture estimation techniques and applications. The value of the coefficient of determination (R2) of surface soil moisture (0-5, cm) to subsurface soil moisture at 6-20 cm, 21-40 cm, and 41-60 cm depths were found to be 0.60, 0.51, and 0.46, respectively, in the summer (Zaid) season. The value of the coefficient of determination (R2) of surface soil moisture (0-5, cm) to subsurface soil moisture at 6-20 cm, 21-40 cm, 41-60 cm, 61-80 cm, and 81-100 cm depths were found to be 0.83, 0.61, 0.51, 0.26, and 0.13, respectively. According to the study, it is observed that the relationship between co-polarization backscatter coefficient ( and soil moisture weakens as the depth of soil moisture increases. Overall, the regression models developed between the co-polarization backscatter coefficient ( and surface soil moisture showed very good results, whereas the regression models developed between the surface soil moisture and soil moisture at various depths showed reasonably acceptable results up to the depth of 60 cm. The findings in the present study suggest that Sentinel-1A C-band SAR data can be used to estimate surface soil moisture. It is also shown in this study that the surface soil moisture can be correlated with the subsurface soil moisture up to the depth of 60 cm, satisfactorily using regression equations.

Comparison of Recent Remote Sensing Data Using an Artificial Neural Network to Predict Soil Moisture by Focusing on Radiometric Indices

Remote sensing data is widely used as a common variable for digital soil mapping estimating models. The aim of this study, quite recently made available to researchers Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI–2) have structure Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 (OLI) and Sentinel 2A (MSI) to compare the performance of soil moisture estimation in multi-layer perceptron network (MLP) artificial intelligence algorithm of image data. The working area is 886.78 km2 and soil sampling was performed at 66 points for gravimetric soil moisture determination. In addition, after the satellite images were pre-processed, Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) were calculated. Landsat 9 (OLI-2) based SAVI and NDMI showed a moderately significant positive correlation relationship with gravimetric soil moisture (rSAVI-SM=0.62, rNMDI-SM=0.44). The relationship between Landsat 8 (OLI) (rSAVI-SM=0.57, rNDMI-SM=0.11) and Sentinel 2A (MSI) (rSAVI-SM=0.42, rNDMI-SM=0.27) based radiometric indices and soil moisture was lower than Landsat 9 (OLI-2). RMSE values of MLP models were found to be respectively 0.79, 1.16 and 1.17 for Landsat 9 (OLI-2), Landsat 8 (OLI) and Sentinel 2A (MSI). Our results showed that with an Operational Land Imager (OLI-2) and near and short-wave infrared wavelengths improvements to multispectral imaging have improved soil moisture estimation success.

Segment-based fusion of multi-sensor multi-scale satellite soil moisture retrievals

ABSTRACT Synergetic use of sensors for soil moisture retrieval is attracting considerable interest due to the different advantages of different sensors. Active, passive, and optic data integration could be a comprehensive solution for exploiting the advantages of different sensors aimed at preparing soil moisture maps. Typically, pixel-based methods are used for multi-sensor fusion. Since, different applications need different scales of soil moisture maps, pixel-based approaches are limited for this purpose. Object-based image analysis employing an image object instead of a pixel could help us to meet this need. This paper proposes a segment-based image fusion framework to evaluate the possibility of preparing a multi-scale soil moisture map through integrated Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) data. The results confirmed that the proposed methodology was able to improve soil moisture estimation in different scales up to 20% better compared to pixel-based fusion approach.

Improving Soil Moisture Estimation via Assimilation of Remote Sensing Product into the DSSAT Crop Model and Its Effect on Agricultural Drought Monitoring

Accurate knowledge of soil moisture is crucial for agricultural drought monitoring. Data assimilation has proven to be a promising technique for improving soil moisture estimation, and various studies have been conducted on soil moisture data assimilation based on land surface models. However, crop growth models, which are ideal tools for agricultural simulation applications, are rarely used for soil moisture assimilation. Moreover, the role of data assimilation in agricultural drought monitoring is seldom investigated. In the present work, we assimilated the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) soil moisture product into the Decision Support System for Agro-technology Transfer (DSSAT) model to estimate surface and root-zone soil moisture, and we evaluated the effect of data assimilation on agricultural drought monitoring. The results demonstrate that the soil moisture estimates were significantly improved after data assimilation. Root-zone soil moisture had a better agreement with in situ observation. Compared with the drought index based on soil moisture modeled without remotely-sensed observations, the drought index based on assimilated data could improve at least one drought level in agricultural drought monitoring and performed better when compared with winter wheat yield. In conclusion, crop growth model-based data assimilation effectively improves the soil moisture estimation and further strengthens soil moisture-based drought indices for agricultural drought monitoring.

A Hybrid Triple Collocation-Deep Learning Approach for Improving Soil Moisture Estimation from Satellite and Model-Based Data

Satellite retrieval and land surface models have become the mainstream methods for monitoring soil moisture (SM) over large regions; however, the uncertainty and coarse spatial resolution of these products limit their applications at the regional and local scales. We proposed a hybrid approach combining the triple collocation (TC) and the long short-term memory (LSTM) network, which was designed to generate a high-quality SM dataset from satellite and modeled data. We applied the proposed approach to merge SM data from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Global Land Data Assimilation System-Noah (GLDAS-Noah), and the land component of the fifth generation of European Reanalysis (ERA5-Land), and we then downscaled the merged SM data from 0.36° to 0.01° resolution based on the relationship between the SM data and auxiliary environmental variables (elevation, land surface temperature, vegetation index, surface albedo, and soil texture). The merged and downscaled SM results were validated against in situ observations. The results showed that: (1) the TC-based validation results were consistent with the in situ-based validation, indicating that the TC method was reasonable for the comparison and evaluation of satellite and modeled SM data. (2) TC-based merging was superior to simple arithmetic average merging when the parent products had large differences. (3) Downscaled SM of the TC-based merged product had better performance than that of the parent products in terms of ubRMSE and bias values, implying that the fusion of satellite and model-based SM data would result in better downscaling accuracy. (4) Downscaled SM of TC-based merged data not only improved the representation of the SM spatial variability but also had satisfactory accuracy with a median of R (0.7244), ubRMSE (0.0459 m3/m3), and bias (−0.0126 m3/m3). The proposed approach was effective for generating a SM dataset with fine resolution and reliable accuracy for wide hydrometeorological applications.

Improved soil moisture estimation: Synergistic use of satellite observations and land surface models over CONUS based on machine learning

Three widely used primary soil moisture (SM) data sources, namely, in-situ measurements, satellite observations, and land surface models (LSM), possess different characteristics. This study combined three SM data sources using machine learning (ML): random forest, artificial neural networks, and support vector regression, and simple averaging ensemble approaches to produce improved daily SM data over the contiguous United States (CONUS). For each ML model, three schemes were tested using different independent variables, namely, satellite-derived, LSM-derived, and both. Triple collocation analysis (TCA) was adopted to address the scale mismatch problem between in-situ and coarse gridded SM data. The proposed approach was evaluated using the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN), Soil Moisture Active Passive Core Validation Sites (SMAP CVS), and TCA. In the ISMN-based evaluation, the proposed ML-based ensemble generally produced better evaluation metrics and showed robust skills over topographically complex and densely vegetated regions where existing SM products showed poor skills. The SMAP CVS-based evaluation demonstrated that the ML ensemble approach yielded a better performance than the existing SM datasets, resulting in a correlation coefficient of 0.78, unbiased root mean squared difference of 0.035 m3/m3, and bias of 0.006 m3/m3. In addition, the TCA results additionally confirmed that the ML-based ensemble had better spatiotemporal quality than the other SM products. The data-driven approach proposed in this study has three major novelties: (1) the proposed ML-based method synergistically merges various data sources to improve SM; (2) the performance of the proposed ML-based SM was robust to topography and vegetation; and (3) the average ensemble of three ML models additionally improves performances. The SM time-series data generated by the proposed approach are expectedly suitable variables for environmental and climate applications over CONUS. The research findings suggest that ML algorithms can be effectively used for modeling dynamic soil moisture.

Soil moisture estimation using novel bio-inspired soft computing approaches

ABSTRACT Soil moisture (SM) is of paramount importance in irrigation scheduling, infiltration, runoff, and agricultural drought monitoring. This work aimed at evaluating the performance of the classical ANFIS (Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System) model as well as ANFIS coupled with three bio-inspired metaheuristic optimization methods including whale optimization algorithm (ANFIS-WOA), krill herd algorithm (ANFIS-KHA) and firefly algorithm (ANFIS-FA) in estimating SM. Daily air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and sunshine hours data at Istanbul Bolge station in Turkey and soil temperature values measured over 2008–2009 were fed into the models under six different scenarios. ANFIS-WOA (RMSE = 1.68, MAPE = 0.04) and ANFIS (RMSE = 2.55, MAPE = 0.07) exhibited the best and worst performance in SM estimation, respectively. All three hybrid models (ANFIS-WOA, ANFIS-KHA and ANFIS-FA) improved SM estimates, reducing RMSE by 34, 28 and 27% relative to the base ANFIS model, respectively. A more detailed analysis of model performances in estimating moisture content over three intervals including [15–25), [25–35) and ≥35% revealed that ANFIS-WOA has had the lowest errors with RMSEs of 1.69, 1.89 and 1.55 in the three SM intervals, respectively. From the perspective of under- or over-estimation of moisture values, ANFIS-WOA (RMSE = 1.44, MAPE = 0.03) in under-estimation set and ANFIS-KHA (RMSE = 1.94, MAPE = 0.05) in over-estimation set showed the highest accuracies. Overall, all three hybrid models performed better in the underestimation set compared to overestimation set.

Effects of meteorological forcings and land surface model on soil moisture simulation over China

Land surface model (LSM) simulations forced by observed meteorological data provide spatially continuous and temporally complete soil moisture estimates, but the influences of models and meteorological forcings are yet to be validated over a large area due to the lack of in situ measurements. In this study, the Conjunctive Surface-Subsurface Process version 2 (CSSPv2) model was driven by three meteorological forcings, namely, CLDASv2.0, ERA5 and GLDASv2.1, to provide soil moisture simulations over China. The validations over 2090 in situ stations during 2012–2017 showed that CLDASv2.0/CSSPv2 soil moisture simulation performed better than ERA5 and GLDASv2.1 reanalysis products, with an increased correlation of 26%–68% and reduced errors of 14%–24% at the daily time scale. The improvements mostly originate from the use of an advanced LSM because CLDASv2.0/CSSPv2 only increased the correlation by 5%–35% and decreased the errors by up to 9% when compared with ERA5/CSSPv2 and GLDASv2.1/CSSPv2. In contrast, ERA5/CSSPv2 and GLDASv2.1/CSSPv2 soil moisture simulations increased the correlations from their alternative reanalysis LSMs by 17%–63%, and decreased the errors by up to 18%. The results are similar when using the SMAP satellite product as the validation data. The influence of the LSM was more obvious over semiarid regions, such as northern China. The influence of meteorological forcing was more significant for soil moisture simulations at the surface layer, while the LSMs played a more critical role for the middle and deep layers, especially during the cold season due to freeze-thaw processes. This study demonstrates the possibility to further improve soil moisture estimates at a large scale with advanced LSMs, even with the emergence of modern reanalyses.

Assessment of EnKF data assimilation of satellite-derived soil moisture over the Indian domain with the Noah land surface model

Land surface models (LSMs) are typically forced with observed precipitation and surface meteorology and hence the soil moisture estimates obtained from LSM do not reflect the contribution of irrigation to the soil moisture estimates. However, the satellite retrievals of soil moisture estimates do register the signature of the irrigation effects. It is suggested that the soil moisture estimates obtained from LSM may reflect the role of irrigation if they are assimilated with soil moisture estimated from satellites. The present study evaluates the improvement of soil moisture estimates obtained from Noah LSM by ingesting them with the satellite-derived Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) soil moisture retrievals over the Indian domain for the year 2012. The above ingesting of soil moisture estimates is performed using the land information system (LIS). The improved soil moisture estimates are validated with the in situ India Meteorological Department (IMD) soil moisture observations and also with the high-resolution Indian Monsoon Data Assimilation and Analysis (IMDAA) regional reanalysis data. The percentages of grid points over the Indian domain where the improvement parameter shows positive values are 59.14% (winter), 69.17% (pre-monsoon), 43.59% (monsoon), and 77.53% (post-monsoon). Furthermore, the forecast impact parameter also indicates the positive impact of data assimilation. Also, 12 of the 22 stations show reduced RMSE soil moisture error after data assimilation is performed while only 6 of the 22 stations show higher correlation coefficient in soil moisture without data assimilation, when validated with the in situ IMD soil moisture observations. The study has also evaluated the irrigation impact of ASCAT in the assimilated soil moisture using triple collocation (TC) method. For the TC analysis, the model-based Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM), and MERRA (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications) Land data set together with soil moisture model outputs with and without ASCAT assimilation are used to calculate the error and correlation coefficient of each of the two set of triplets. The results of the TC analysis further conclusively show the positive impact of irrigation effects in the ASCAT-assimilated soil moisture model output.

A Triple Collocation-Based Comparison of Three L-Band Soil Moisture Datasets, SMAP, SMOS-IC, and SMOS, Over Varied Climates and Land Covers

Soil moisture plays an important role in the hydrologic water cycle. Relative to in-situ soil moisture measurements, remote sensing has been the only means of monitoring global scale soil moisture in near real-time over the past 40 years. Among these, soil moisture products from radiometry sensors operating at L-band, e.g., SMAP, SMOS, and SMOS-IC, are theoretically established to be more advantageous than previous C/X-band products. However, little effort has been made to investigate the inter-product differences of L-band soil moisture retrievals and provide insights into the optimal use of these products. In this regard, this study aims to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of three L-band soil moisture products across diverse climate zones and land covers at the global scale using triple collocation analysis. Results show that SMOS-IC exhibits significantly improved soil moisture estimation skills, relative to the original SMOS product. This demonstrates the paramount importance of retrieval algorithm development in improving global soil moisture estimates—given both SMOS-IC and SMOS are using the same L-band brightness temperature information. Relative to SMOS-IC, SMAP is superior across 69% of global land surface in terms of error variances. However, SMOS-IC tends to outperform SMAP over temperate/arid regions including in the east of North America, South America, western Africa, northern China, and central Australia. Additionally, considerable performance degradation of all the L-band data products is observed over unvegetated areas. This may suggest that improving soil moisture retrieval accuracy over arid and semi-arid regions should be a key priority for future L-band soil moisture development, and model-based (e.g., GLDAS) soil moisture products appear to provide more accurate soil moisture estimates over these regions.

Using data assimilation to optimize pedotransfer functions using field-scale in situ soil moisture observations

Abstract. Soil moisture predictions from land surface models are important in hydrological, ecological, and meteorological applications. In recent years, the availability of wide-area soil moisture measurements has increased, but few studies have combined model-based soil moisture predictions with in situ observations beyond the point scale. Here we show that we can markedly improve soil moisture estimates from the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model using field-scale observations and data assimilation techniques. Rather than directly updating soil moisture estimates towards observed values, we optimize constants in the underlying pedotransfer functions, which relate soil texture to JULES soil physics parameters. In this way, we generate a single set of newly calibrated pedotransfer functions based on observations from a number of UK sites with different soil textures. We demonstrate that calibrating a pedotransfer function in this way improves the soil moisture predictions of a land surface model at 16 UK sites, leading to the potential for better flood, drought, and climate projections.

Improving Surface Soil Moisture Estimates in Humid Regions by an Enhanced Remote Sensing Technique

AbstractUsing optical remote sensing data to downscale microwave soil moisture is currently a crucial technique for producing fine‐resolution soil moisture data set at large scales. Conventional soil moisture downscaling models are mainly developed and evaluated in arid or semi‐arid regions, but have serious limitation in humid regions. To improve soil moisture estimates under a wide range of climate regimes, this study developed a nonlinear enhanced soil moisture downscaling model and evaluated it at a typical microwave resolution over the contiguous China. The enhanced model clearly outperforms the conventional approach in estimating surface soil moisture by reducing the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) from 0.175 vol/vol to 0.075 vol/vol under wet climate. Finally, soil moisture downscaling is conducted by applying such models (built at the 25‐km scale) at a finer (1‐km) resolution. Validation result of downscaled soil moisture against in situ data set demonstrates the advantage of the enhanced model.

Improving Soil Moisture Estimation by Identification of NDVI Thresholds Optimization: An Application to the Chinese Loess Plateau

Accuracy soil moisture estimation at a relevant spatiotemporal scale is scarce but beneficial for understanding ecohydrological processes and improving weather forecasting and climate models, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions like the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP). This study proposed Criterion 2, a new method to improve relative soil moisture (RSM) estimation by identification of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) thresholds optimization based on our previously proposed iteration procedure of Criterion 1. Apparent thermal inertia (ATI) and temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) were applied to subregional RSM retrieval for the CLP throughout 2017. Three optimal NDVI thresholds (NDVI0 was used for computing TVDI, and both NDVIATI and NDVITVDI for dividing the entire CLP) were firstly identified with the best validation results (R¯) of subregions for 8-day periods. Then, we compared the selected optimal NDVI thresholds and estimated RSM with each criterion. Results show that NDVI thresholds were optimized to robust RSM estimation with Criterion 2, which characterized RSM variability better. The estimated RSM with Criterion 2 showed increased accuracy (maximum R¯ of 0.82 ± 0.007 for Criterion 2 and of 0.75 ± 0.008 for Criterion 1) and spatiotemporal coverage (45 and 38 periods (8-day) of RSM maps and the total RSM area of 939.52 × 104 km2 and 667.44 × 104 km2 with Criterion 2 and Criterion 1, respectively) than with Criterion 1. Moreover, the additional NDVI thresholds we applied was another strategy to acquire wider coverage of RSM estimation. The improved RSM estimation with Criterion 2 could provide a basis for forecasting drought and precision irrigation management.

Comparing the Assimilation of SMOS Brightness Temperatures and Soil Moisture Products on Hydrological Simulation in the Canadian Land Surface Scheme

Soil moisture is a key variable used to describe water and energy exchanges at the land surface/atmosphere interface. Therefore, there is widespread interest in the use of soil moisture retrievals from passive microwave satellites. In the assimilation of satellite soil moisture data into land surface models, two approaches are commonly used. In the first approach brightness temperature (TB) data are assimilated, while in the second approach retrieved soil moisture (SM) data from the satellite are assimilated. However, there is not a significant body of literature comparing the differences between these two approaches, and it is not known whether there is any advantage in using a particular approach over the other. In this study, TB and SM L2 retrieval products from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite are assimilated into the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS), for improved soil moisture estimation over an agricultural region in Saskatchewan. CLASS is the land surface component of the Canadian Earth System Model (CESM), and the Canadian Seasonal and Interannual Prediction System (CanSIPS). Our results indicated that assimilating the SMOS products improved the soil moisture simulation skill of the CLASS. Near surface soil moisture assimilation also resulted in improved forecasts of root zone soil moisture (RZSM) values. Although both techniques resulted in improved forecasts of RZSM, assimilation of TB resulted in the superior estimates.

A Soil Moisture Data Assimilation System for Pakistan Using PODEn4DVar and CLM4.5

Soil moisture is an important state variable for land-atmosphere interactions. It is a vital land surface variable for research on hydrology, agriculture, climate, and drought monitoring. In current study, a soil moisture data assimilation framework has been developed by using the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5) and the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD)-based ensemble four-dimensional variational assimilation (PODEn4DVar) algorithm. Assimilation experiments were conducted at four agricultural sites in Pakistan by assimilating in-situ soil moisture observations. The results showed that it was a reliable system. To quantify further the feasibility of the data assimilation (DA) system, soil moisture observations from the top four soil-depths (0–5, 5–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm) were assimilated. The evaluation results indicated that the DA system improved soil moisture estimation. In addition, updating the soil moisture in the upper soil layers of CLM4.5 could improve soil moisture estimation in deeper soil layers [layer 7 (L7, 62.0 cm) and layer 8 (L8, 103.8 cm)]. To further evaluate the DA system, observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) were designed for Pakistan by assimilating daily observations. These idealized experiments produced statistical results that had higher correlation coefficients, reduced root mean square errors, and lower biases for assimilation, which showed that the DA system is able to produce and improve soil moisture estimation in Pakistan.

Improving soil moisture retrieval accuracy of Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 in vegetated areas using land surface parameters of Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite

The current remote sensing systems designed to measure soil moisture have a relatively coarse spatial resolution ranging from 25 to 50 km. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) is a passive sensor that measures soil moisture through C-band (6.9 and 7.3 GHz) observation of brightness temperature (BT). AMSR2 uses land parameter retrieval model to retrieve surface soil moisture and vegetation optical depth. This model partitions the microwave observation into its respective soil and vegetation emission components. AMSR2 loses sensitivity to soil moisture as vegetation density increases, during the growing season. Field observations show that AMSR2 tends to overestimate the soil moisture when the vegetation intensity increases and covers the soil. We address two existing issues in the use of soil moisture products of the AMSR2: (1) spatial resolution of the soil moisture product and (2) the impact of vegetation cover on the radiative transfer. We used a vegetative index to estimate when soil moisture retrieval is not sufficiently accurate and how the optical data can be used to improve soil moisture estimation. The land surface temperature and vegetation index products of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite are used to downscale the AMSR2 soil moisture products to 1 km. A series of soil moisture data collected in the field were used to analyze the accuracy of the downscaled soil moisture values and the results indicated that introduction of the BT in the downscaling model improves the accuracy of the soil moisture products over the vegetated areas. The mean absolute error (MAE) of the downscaled soil moisture values is ∼5.6 % —an improvement to 8.0% of original AMSR2 soil moisture products. In the presence of vegetation, however, the MAE is still greater than that of a similar analysis of AMSR2 product over semiarid areas.

An integrated approach to estimate surface soil moisture in agricultural lands

Sentinel-1 and Landsat-8 data were used to retrieve soil moisture from top soil surface (0–5 cm depth) at agricultural land (area under wheat crop). After pre-processing of satellite data and removal of vegetation influence (σ°veg) using Water Cloud Model (WCM), total backscattering coefficient (σ°total) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were used to simulate backscattering from soil (σ°soil). Modified Dubois Model (MDM) and Topp's Model were used to retrieve soil moisture using ε. Further, modelled soil moisture was evaluated using in situ soil moisture measurements and a Time Domain Reflectometer during Sentinel-1 overpass (24 January, 25 February and 13 March 2018). Statistical tests showed that an integrated approach has potential to improve soil moisture estimates over the vegetated/cropped area for agricultural and hydrological studies.

Soil Moisture Estimation by GNSS Multipath Signal

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) multipath signals received by a geodetic-quality GNSS receiver can be used to estimate the water content of soil around the antenna. The direct signals from satellite to GNSS antenna are the most valuable signals in geodetic measurement, such as positioning, navigation, GNSS control network, deformation monitoring, and so on. However, the GNSS antenna also captures the reflected signals from the ground, which contain information of surrounding environment, so that useful information about the reflection surface can be inferred by analyzing the reflected signal. This technique is termed as GNSS-interferometric reflectometry. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data recorded by a receiver contains SNR component of reflected signals, which is related to the soil moisture of the ground. The changes of soil moisture content will cause the change of soil permittivity and reflectivity which are the key factors that make further change of the SNR of reflected signals. We used the measured data to evaluate the correlation between amplitude of multipath induced SNR time series and real soil moisture. An improved soil moisture estimation algorithm based on multipath induced SNR amplitude data is proposed in this paper. The performance of the proposed soil moisture estimation method is evaluated using the 15-month data recorded by PBO H2O GNSS station and a 14-day experiment in Wuhan, China. The experimental results show that the estimated soil moisture has a strong correlation with the real soil moisture and the estimation accuracy in terms of root-mean-square error (RMSE) is 0.0345 cm3cm−3 and 0.0339 cm3cm−3, respectively. Meanwhile, the application scope of the method is given.

Impact of Soil Moisture Data Resolution on Soil Moisture and Surface Heat Flux Estimates through Data Assimilation: A Case Study in the Southern Great Plains

Abstract The spatial heterogeneity and temporal variation of soil moisture and surface heat fluxes are key to many geophysical and environmental studies. It has been demonstrated that they can be mapped by assimilating soil thermal and wetness information into surface energy balance models. The aim of this work is to determine whether enhancing the spatial resolution or temporal sampling frequency of soil moisture data could improve soil moisture or surface heat flux estimates. Two experiments are conducted in an area mainly covered by grassland, and land surface temperature (LST) observations from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) mission are assimilated together with either an enhanced L-band passive soil moisture product (9 km, 2–3 days) from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission or a merged product (36 km, quasi-daily) from the SMAP and the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. The results suggest that the availability of soil moisture observations is increased by 41% after merging data from the SMAP and the SMOS missions. A comparison with results from a previous study that assimilated a coarser SMAP soil moisture product (36 km, 2–3 days) suggests that enhancing the temporal sampling frequency of soil moisture observations leads to improved soil moisture estimates at both the surface and root zone, and the largest improvement is seen in the bias metric (0.008 and 0.007 m3 m−3 on average at the surface and root zone, respectively). Enhancing the spatial resolution, however, does not significantly improve soil moisture estimates, particularly at the surface. Surface heat flux estimates from assimilating soil moisture data of different spatial or temporal resolutions are very similar.