Improved Understanding of Soil Surface Roughness Parameterization for L-Band Passive Microwave Soil Moisture Retrieval

Surface roughness parameterization plays an important role in soil moisture retrieval from passive microwave observations. This letter investigates the parameterization of surface roughness in the retrieval algorithm adopted by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission, making use of experimental airborne and ground data from the National Airborne Field Experiment held in Australia in 2005. The surface roughness parameter is retrieved from high-resolution (60 m) airborne data in different soil moisture conditions, using the ground soil moisture as input of the model. The effect of surface roughness on the emitted signal is found to change with the soil moisture conditions with a law different from that proposed in previous studies. The magnitude of this change is found to be related to soil textural properties: in clay soils, the effect of surface roughness is higher in intermediate wetness conditions (0.2–0.3 v/v) and decreases on both the dry and wet ends. Consequently, this letter calls for a rethink of surface roughness parameterization in microwave emission modeling.      

Study on penetration depth and its dependence on frequency,soil moisture,texture and temperature in the context of microwave remote sensing

A theoretical study has been made to see the influence of microwave frequency, soil moisture, soil texture and soil temperature on penetration depth in the context of microwave remote sensing. The results are presented in the form of figures and also coefficients of least square fitting. The study reveals that there is a definite dependence of penetration depth on the above parameters. The range of penetration depth has been found to be 0 to 10 cms and varies as a function of several parameters. These results are in agreement with experimental observations.     

Impact of sub-pixel heterogeneity on modelled brightness temperature for an agricultural region

Knowledge of sub-pixel heterogeneity, particularly at the passive microwave scale, can improve the brightness temperature (and ultimately the soil moisture) estimation. However, the impact of surface heterogeneity (in terms of soil moisture, soil temperature and vegetation water content) on brightness temperature in an agricultural setting is relatively unknown. The Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2012 (SMAPVEX12) provided an opportunity to evaluate sub-pixel heterogeneity at the scale of a Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) or the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radiometer footprint using field measured data. The first objective of this study was to determine if accounting for surface heterogeneity reduced the error between estimated brightness temperature (T_b) and T_b measured by SMOS. It was found that when accounting for variation in surface soil moisture, temperature and vegetation water content within the pixel footprint, the error between the modelled T_b and the measured T_b was less than if a homogeneous pixel were modelled. The correlation between the surface parameters and the error associated with not accounting for surface heterogeneity were investigated. It was found that there was low to moderate correlation between the error and the coefficient of variance associated with the measured soil moisture, soil temperature and vegetation volumetric water content during the field campaign. However, it was found that the correlations changed depending on the stage of vegetation growth and the amount of time following a precipitation event. At the start of the field campaign (following a precipitation event), there was strong correlation between the error and all three surface parameters (r ≥ 0.75). Following a precipitation event close to the middle of the field campaign (during which there was rapid growth in vegetation), there was strong correlation between the error and the variability in vegetation water content (r = 0.89), moderate correlation with soil moisture (r = 0.61) and low correlation with soil temperature (r = 0.26).     

Influence of freeze-thaw events on carbon dioxide emission from soils at different moisture and land use

Background  

The repeated freeze-thaw events during cold season, freezing of soils in autumn and thawing in spring are typical for the tundra, boreal, and temperate soils. The thawing of soils during winter-summer transitions induces the release of decomposable organic carbon and acceleration of soil respiration. The winter-spring fluxes of CO₂ from permanently and seasonally frozen soils are essential part of annual carbon budget varying from 5 to 50%. The mechanisms of the freeze-thaw activation are not absolutely clear and need clarifying. We investigated the effect of repeated freezing-thawing events on CO₂ emission from intact arable and forest soils (Luvisols, loamy silt; Central Germany) at different moisture (65% and 100% of WHC).     

裸露地表微波热采样深度统计模型

被动微波遥感反演土壤水分对应的土壤深度是土壤水分产品真实性检验和应用中必须确定的问题。本研究利用理论模型对影响土壤热采样深度的参数进行了分析。在此基础上,通过回归分析的方法发展了一个估算被动微波遥感土壤热采样深度的统计模型,并通过微波辐射测量实验对模型进行了验证。研究证明,理论模型模拟裸露地表发射率平均误差为0.032,基于理论模型发展的热采样深度统计模型的误差在0.5 cm左右。该统计模型可以通过土壤含水量、温度、质地和观测频率4个较容易获取的参数计算土壤微波辐射的热采样深度,为被动微波遥感土壤水分产品的真实性检验工作中地面土壤水分测量以及土壤水分遥感产品的应用提供参考。     

综合主动和被动微波数据监测土壤水分变化

微波遥感测量土壤水分的方法主要分主动和被动两种，它们都是基于干燥土壤和水体之间介电常数的巨大差异。估算植被覆盖土壤表面土壤水分必须要考虑地表粗糙度和植被覆盖影响的问题。植被覆盖土壤表面的后向散射包括来自植被的体散射，来自地表的面散射和植被与地表间的交互作用散射项。本研究建立了一个半经验公式模型，用来计算体散射项，综合时间序列的主动和被动微波数据，消除植被覆盖的影响，估算地表土壤水分的变化状况。并应用1997年美国SGP‘97综合实验中的机载800m分辨辐射计ESTAR数据计算表面反射系数，综合Radarsat的SCAN-SAR数据得到体散射项，然后，由NOAA/AVHRR和TM计算得到的NDVI值加权分配50m分辨率的体散射项，最后计算50m分辨率的表面反射系数的变化值，从而得到土壤水分的变化情况，验证数据表明该计算结果与实测值一致。     

A comparative study of different dielectric models—computation of representative dielectric profiles of black soils

The dielectric property of the soil is an important parameter for microwave remote sensing. Therefore an attempt is made to study and compare the models for the dielectric constant of moist soils by considering three soil types namely Haldi series (sandy loam), Hathiapathar series (silt loam) and Jambria series (clay) and at frequencies 1.4, 4.0 and 18.0 GHz. The semiempirical models of Wang et al. (1980) and Dobson et al (1985) predict more or les same results in the domain of their applicability. However, at lower frequencies below 1.0 GHz, the imaginary part of dielectric constant shows a decreasing trend with decreasing frequency for Wang et al (1980) model whereas it shows reverse trend for Dobson et al (1985) model. The soil texture and frequency dependence of dielectric constant have been investigated for Indian soils. Some of the representative dielectric profiles of black soils of Pune have been computed using semiempirical model of Dobson et al (1985) which are useful for the development of multifrequency models for the study of soil moisture.     

Microwave response to broad leaf vegetation (Spinach) and vegetation covered moist soil for remote sensing

Soil moisture is one of the most important parameter which controls the growth of the vegetation. For accurate data and sufficient information to increase food production, remote sensing technique is highly useful. This paper deals with the bistatic microwave response of spinach and spinach covered soil moisture at various growth stages on X-band if the frequency spectrum. The microwave response of spinach in different stages of growth have been studied in terms of scattering co-efficient (σ^°). The look angle effect on σ^° is observed for like polarization i.e. (VV-and-HH) only. A linear regression analysis has been done between the vegetation covered soil moisture and scattering co-efficient. It provides an idea that VV-polarization is more sensitive than HH-polarizalion for vegetation covered soil moisture and best suitable look angle for observing vegetation covered soil moisture is less than 40°(θ<40°).     

Intercomparison of two trapezoid-based soil moisture downscaling methods using three scaling factors

This paper compared two soil moisture downscaling methods using three scaling factors. Level 3 soil moisture product of advanced microwave scanning radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) is downscaled from 25 to 1?km. The downscaled results are compared with the soil moisture observations from polarimetric scanning radiometer (PSR) microwave radiometer and field sampling. The results show that (1) the scaling factor of normalized soil thermal inertia (NSTIs) and vegetation temperature condition index (VTCI) are better than soil evaporative efficiency in reflecting soil moisture; (2) for method 1, NSTIS is the best in the downscaling of soil moisture. For method 2, VTCI is the best; (3) no significant differences of the correlation coefficients (R²) and the biases were found between the two methods for the same scaling factors. However, method 2 shows a better potential than method 1 in the time-series applications of the downscaling of soil moisture; (4) compared with the relationship between the area-averaged soil moisture of AMSR-E and that of PSR, R² of the 6 sets of the downscaled soil moisture almost do not decrease, which suggests the validity of the downscaling of soil moisture with the two downscaling methods using the three scaling factors.     

Earth observations during space shuttle mission STS‐34: 18–23 October 1989

Abstract

Although high‐resolution microwave synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors possess all‐weather capability for mapping soil moisture from spaceborne platforms, continuous temporal and spatial monitoring of this important hydrological parameter has been relatively limited. However, the recent launch of operational SAR sensors aboard various satellites have made possible synoptic soil moisture monitoring a reality. Such systems operate over a wide range of frequencies, look angles, and polarization combinations, and thus show synergistic advantages when combined for estimating soil moisture patterns. Two soil moisture inversion algorithms have been developed using as inputs radar backscattering data at L, S, and C bands in the microwave frequency range. These models have been tested using radar image simulation with speckle added. It is observed that the neural network algorithm yields superior results in mapping actual soil moisture patterns over the linear statistical inversion technique, although both models show comparable errors in soil moisture estimation. We infer that using statistical estimation errors alone for comparison purposes may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the advantages of one soil moisture inversion algorithm over another.     

土壤湿度微波遥感监测研究进展

土壤湿度是农业生产的重要影响因子,获取土壤湿度信息以制定人工干预调节措施是稳固生产的重要保证,实时、有效地监测土壤墒情显得尤为重要。利用遥感数据反演土壤湿度有多种方法,微波遥感法被认为是目前最佳的监测方法。本文总结了被动、主动微波土壤湿度遥感监测的主要模型、方法及其优缺点和适用范围,分析了雷达遥感监测土壤湿度的最优参数选取等,展望了微波遥感监测土壤湿度的应用前景,以期为土壤湿度微波遥感监测研究提供参考和借鉴。     

光学与微波数据协同反演农田区土壤水分

光学和微波协同遥感反演对于提高农田土壤水分遥感反演精度十分重要。本文采用SMEX02数据集,研究了L波段土壤发射率与地表土壤水分之间的关系,分析了地面植被覆盖对L波段土壤发射率与地表水分之关系的影响规律,推导了以L波段土壤发射率和归一化植被指数NDVI为自变量的土壤水分反演模型。研究表明:L波段土壤发射率与地表土壤水分之间的相关性随NDVI的增加而下降。验证结果表明,本文算法相对常规经验算法,土壤水分反演精度明显提高,H极化条件下,土壤水分的反演精度RMSE由0.0553提高到0.0407,相关系数R2由0.70提高到0.81;V极化条件下,反演精度RMSE由0.0452提高到0.0348,相关系数R2由0.79提高到0.86。     

用模型和车载微波辐射仪研究多频率多角度下玉米的散射和衰减特性

在使用被动微波技术反演土壤水分的过程中,为去除植被的影响,通常采用适用于低频的τ-ω模型。为准确评估较高频率下植被的散射和衰减特性,以玉米为例,采用基于光线跟踪原理的双矩阵(Matrix-Doubling)微波辐射模型,研究不同高度的作物在C(6.925GHz)、X(10.65GHz)和Ku(18.7GHz)波段下的单散射反照率和传输率。模型模拟的亮度温度跟车载微波辐射仪的野外实测数据接近。为验证模拟的玉米自身微波辐射,在玉米地上铺设了一层铝箔屏蔽地表的辐射。通过给验证后的模型输入不同的参数,建立一个亮度温度数据库,以模拟自然状态下不同高度玉米的亮度温度。然后把模型模拟的结果,跟相同环境下τ-ω模型得到的结果按最小二乘法进行匹配,从而获得不同高度的玉米在C、X和Ku波段上等效的单散射反照率和传输率。     

含水含盐土壤的微波介电特性分析研究

用微波网络分析仪测量了实验室制备的各种不同含水量,含盐量的土壤样品的复介电常数,研究了介电常数的实部和虚部与频率、盐度、含水量的关系。研究表明:频率、盐度对土壤介电常数实部的影响很小;对于某一特定土壤,其介电常数的实部由土壤的含水量决定;在较低频率范围内（f<2GHz）,虚部随着频率的增大而迅速下降,高频部分则趋向于一定值,波长较长的波段,如P波段或L波段对土壤含盐程度具有更高的敏感性,含盐量对虚部在较低频范围（f<5GHz）影响很大。同时,采集了内蒙古吉兰泰盐湖区的土壤样品,并测量了其复介电常数,与同步过顶的RADARSAT图像进行了相关分析。分析结果表明雷达图像记录的后向散射强度与含盐土壤复介电常数实部的相关系数为0.23,与虚部的相关系数为0.66,即雷达图像观测的含盐含水士壤的后向散射强度与土壤的含盐量相关性较高。这为利用微波遥感进行土壤盐碱化程度监测,提供了可能和实验依据。     

目标分解技术在植被覆盖条件下土壤水分计算中的应用

目标分解技术利用协方差距阵的特征值和特征矢量，将极化雷达后向散射测量值分解为单向散射，双向散射和交叉极化散射三个分量，并建立了植被覆盖地表的一阶物理离散散射模型。通过分解的各分量与该模型的比较，建立重轨极化雷达测量数据估算土壤水分的方法，采用Washita‘92实验区多时相全极化L波段JPL/AIRSAR图像雷达测量数据，利用分解的散射测量值，我们评估了在同一入射角，单频（L波段），多路条件下，分解理论在进行土壤水分估计时减少植被影响的能力。结果表明利用目标分解理论和重轨极化雷达数据可以估算植被覆盖区域土壤水分的变化情况。     

Modified Dubois Model for Estimating Soil Moisture with Dual Polarized SAR Data

This paper discusses a new methodology to estimate soil moisture in agriculture region using SAR data with the use of HH and HV polarization. In this study the semi empirical model derived by Dubois et al. (IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 33(4), 915–926, 1995) was modified to work using σ _HH instead of two like polarization equations σ_HH, σ_VV so that soil moisture can be obtained for the larger area frequently. The field derived roughness correlated with the cross polarization ratio (HV/HH) to replace the one unknown parameter ‘s’ in the Dubois model and hence the dielectric constant was derived by inverting the Dubois model equation (HH). The Topp et al. (Water Resources Research, 16(3), 574–582, 1980) model was used to retrieve soil moisture using the dielectric constant. The mid incidence angle was used to overcome the incident angle effect and it worked successfully to the larger extent. The result is realistic overall, especially where surface has less variation in the roughness and vegetation since the penetration capability of C-band is limited when plant grows hence model valid in the initial period of cultivation. The derived model is having good scope for soil moisture monitoring with the present availability of Indian RISAT data.     

山区地形对被动微波遥感影响的研究进展

随着土壤湿度与海水盐度卫星( SMOS)发射计划的顺利开展和AMSR -E(Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer- Earth Observing System)业务化运行服务之后,人类用星载微波辐射计监测土壤水分是空间技术上的又一次飞跃,但土壤水分的反演精度受到微波辐射计低空间...     

An Assessment of QuikSCAT Ku-Band Scatterometer Data for Soil Moisture Sensitivity

The QuikSCAT enhanced (2.225-km) backscattering product is investigated for sensitivity to changes in soil moisture and its potential for spatial disaggregation of Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) soil moisture. Specifically, an active–passive methodology based on temporal change detection is tested using data from the 2006 National Airborne Field Experiment data set. This campaign was carried out from October 29 to November 20, 2006 in a 60 km $times$ 40 km area of the Murrumbidgee catchment, southeast Australia. Temporal change detection analysis and accuracy in terms of spatial pattern distribution throughout the domain were assessed using a passive microwave airborne product derived from the Polarimetric L-band Multibeam Radiometer at 1-km spatial resolution. QuikSCAT–AMSR-E intercomparisons indicated higher correlations when using C-band observations. The greatest sensitivity to soil moisture was observed when using V-polarized backscatter measurement. While backscattering data showed adequate temporal sensitivity to changes in soil moisture due to precipitation events, the spatial agreement was complicated by the presence of irrigation and standing water (rice fields). This resulted in low Cramer's Phi values (less than 0.06), which were used as a measure of spatial correspondence in terms of change in soil moisture and backscatter. In addition, the high QuikSCAT sensor frequency and existence of noise in the observed data contributed to the observed discrepancies.      

Considering combined or separated roughness and vegetation effects in soil moisture retrievals

For more than six years, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission has provided multi angular and full-polarization brightness temperature (TB) measurements at L-band. Geophysical products such as soil moisture (SM) and vegetation optical depth at nadir (τ_nad) are retrieved by an operational algorithm using TB observations at different angles of incidence and polarizations. However, the quality of the retrievals depends on several surface effects, such as vegetation, soil roughness and texture, etc. In the microwave forward emission model used in the retrievals (L-band Microwave Emission Model, L-MEB), soil roughness is modelled with a semi-empirical equation using four main parameters (Q_r, H_r, N_rp, with p = H or V polarizations). At present, these parameters are calibrated with data provided by airborne studies and in situ measurements made at a local scale that is not necessarily representative of the large SMOS footprints (43 km on average) at global scale. In this study, we evaluate the impact of the calibrated values of N_rp and H_r on the SM and τ_nad retrievals based on SMOS TB measurements (SMOS Level 3 product) over the Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) network located in North America over five years (2011–2015). In this study, Q_r was set equal to zero and we assumed that N_rH = N_rV. The retrievals were performed by varying N_rp from −1 to 2 by steps of 1 and H_r from 0 to 0.6 by steps of 0.1. At satellite scale, the results show that combining vegetation and roughness effects in a single parameter provides the best results in terms of soil moisture retrievals, as evaluated against the in situ SM data. Even though our retrieval approach was very simplified, as we did not account for pixel heterogeneity, the accuracy we obtained in the SM retrievals was almost systematically better than those of the Level 3 product. Improved results were also obtained in terms of optical depth retrievals. These new results may have key consequences in terms of calibration of roughness effects within the algorithms of the SMOS (ESA) and the SMAP (NASA) space missions.