Operational readiness of microwave remote sensing of soil moisture for hydrologic applications

Archive ouverte

Wagner, Wolfgang | Bloschl, Gunter | Pampaloni, Paolo | Calvet, Jean-Christophe | Bizzarri, Bizzarro | Wigneron, Jean-Pierre | Kerr, Yann H.

Edité par CCSD ; IWA Publishing -

International audience. Microwave remote sensing of soil moisture has been an active area of research since the 1970s but has yet found little use in operational applications. Given recent advances in retrieval algorithms and the approval of a dedicated soil moisture satellite, it is time to re-assess the potential of various satellite systems to provide soil moisture information for hydrologic applications in an operational fashion. This paper reviews recent progress made with retrieving surface soil moisture from three types of microwave sensors – radiometers, Synthetic Aperture Radars (SARs), and scatterometers. The discussion focuses on the operational readiness of the different techniques, considering requirements that are typical for hydrological applications. It is concluded that operational coarse-resolution (25–50 km) soil moisture products can be expected within the next few years from radiometer and scatterometer systems, while scientific and technological breakthroughs are still needed for operational soil moisture retrieval at finer scales (<1 km) from SAR. Also, further research on data assimilation methods is needed to make best use of the coarse-resolution surface soil moisture data provided by radiometer and scatterometer systems in a hydrologic context and to fully assess the value of these data for hydrological predictions.

Consulter en ligne

Suggestions

Du même auteur

Comparing soil moisture retrievals from SMOS and ASCAT over France

Archive ouverte | Parrens, Marie | CCSD

International audience

Root-zone soil moisture analysis using microwave radiometry

Archive ouverte | Calvet, Jean-Christophe | CCSD

International audience. The SMOS project (CNES/ESA) aims at developing a L-band interferometric radiometer able to provide global estimates of surface soil moisture (ws) with a sampling time of 2-3 d. Several studie...

Use of passive microwave remote sensing to monitor soil moisture. Utilisation des mesures de télédétection micro-onde passive pour le suivi de l’humidité du sol. Synthèse

Archive ouverte | Wigneron, Jean-Pierre | CCSD

International audience. Surface soil moisture is a key variable to describe the water and energy exchanges at the land surface/atmosphere interface. However, soil moisture is highly variable both spatially and tempo...

Chargement des enrichissements...