The effects of scene heterogeneity on soil moisture retrieval from passive microwave data

Davenport, I. J., Sandells, M. J. and Gurney, R. J. (2008) The effects of scene heterogeneity on soil moisture retrieval from passive microwave data. Advances in Water Resources, 31 (11). pp. 1494-1502. ISSN 0309-1708 doi: 10.1016/j.advwatres.2008.06.002

Abstract/Summary

The s–x model of microwave emission from soil and vegetation layers is widely used to estimate soil moisture content from passive microwave observations. Its application to prospective satellite-based observations aggregating several thousand square kilometres requires understanding of the effects of scene heterogeneity. The effects of heterogeneity in soil surface roughness, soil moisture, water area and vegetation density on the retrieval of soil moisture from simulated single- and multi-angle observing systems were tested. Uncertainty in water area proved the most serious problem for both systems, causing errors of a few percent in soil moisture retrieval. Single-angle retrieval was largely unaffected by the other factors studied here. Multiple-angle retrievals errors around one percent arose from heterogeneity in either soil roughness or soil moisture. Errors of a few percent were caused by vegetation heterogeneity. A simple extension of the model vegetation representation was shown to reduce this error substantially for scenes containing a range of vegetation types.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/1199
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.advwatres.2008.06.002
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Environmental Systems Science Centre Interdisciplinary centres and themes > Soil Research Centre
Uncontrolled Keywords	Passive microwave; Soil moisture; Scene heterogeneity; Roughness; Vegetation; Water
Publisher	Elsevier
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