Sensitivity of GNSS-R spaceborne observations to soil moisture and vegetation

Global navigation satellite systems-reflectometry (GNSS-R) is an emerging remote sensing technique that makes use of navigation signals as signals of opportunity in a multistatic radar configuration, with as many transmitters as navigation satellites are in view. GNSS-R sensitivity to soil moisture has already been proven from ground-based and airborne experiments, but studies using space-borne data are still preliminary due to the limited amount of data, collocation, footprint heterogeneity, etc. This study presents a sensitivity study of TechDemoSat-1 GNSS-R data to soil moisture over different types of surfaces (i.e., vegetation covers) and for a wide range of soil moisture and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values. Despite the scattering in the data, which can be largely attributed to the delay-Doppler maps peak variance, the temporal and spatial (footprint size) collocation mismatch with the SMOS soil moisture, and MODIS NDVI vegetation data, and land use data, experimental results for low NDVI values show a large sensitivity to soil moisture and a relatively good Pearson correlation coefficient. As the vegetation cover increases (NDVI increases) the reflectivity, the sensitivity to soil moisture and the Pearson correlation coefficient decreases, but it is still significant.Postprint (author's final draft

Multi-temporal evaluation of soil moisture and land surface temperature dynamics using in situ and satellite observations

Soil moisture (SM) is an important component of the Earth’s surface water balance and by extension the energy balance, regulating the land surface temperature (LST) and evapotranspiration (ET). Nowadays, there are two missions dedicated to monitoring the Earth’s surface SM using L-band radiometers: ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP). LST is remotely sensed using thermal infrared (TIR) sensors on-board satellites, such as NASA’s Terra/Aqua MODIS or ESA & EUMETSAT’s MSG SEVIRI. This study provides an assessment of SM and LST dynamics at daily and seasonal scales, using 4 years (2011–2014) of in situ and satellite observations over the central part of the river Duero basin in Spain. Specifically, the agreement of instantaneous SM with a variety of LST-derived parameters is analyzed to better understand the fundamental link of the SM–LST relationship through ET and thermal inertia. Ground-based SM and LST measurements from the REMEDHUS network are compared to SMOS SM and MODIS LST spaceborne observations. ET is obtained from the HidroMORE regional hydrological model. At the daily scale, a strong anticorrelation is observed between in situ SM and maximum LST (R ˜ -0.6 to -0.8), and between SMOS SM and MODIS LST Terra/Aqua day (R ˜ - 0.7). At the seasonal scale, results show a stronger anticorrelation in autumn, spring and summer (in situ R ˜ -0.5 to -0.7; satellite R ˜ -0.4 to -0.7) indicating SM–LST coupling, than in winter (in situ R ˜ +0.3; satellite R ˜ -0.3) indicating SM–LST decoupling. These different behaviors evidence changes from water-limited to energy-limited moisture flux across seasons, which are confirmed by the observed ET evolution. In water-limited periods, SM is extracted from the soil through ET until critical SM is reached. A method to estimate the soil critical SM is proposed. For REMEDHUS, the critical SM is estimated to be ~0.12 m3/m3 , stable over the study period and consistent between in situ and satellite observations. A better understanding of the SM–LST link could not only help improving the representation of LST in current hydrological and climate prediction models, but also refining SM retrieval or microwave-optical disaggregation algorithms, related to ET and vegetation status.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Impact of day/night time land surface temperature in soil moisture disaggregation algorithms

Since its launch in 2009, the ESA’s SMOS mission is providing global soil moisture (SM) maps at ~40 km, using the first L-band microwave radiometer on space. Its spatial resolution meets the needs of global applications, but prevents the use of the data in regional or local applications, which require higher spatial resolutions (~1-10 km). SM disaggregation algorithms based generally on the land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation indices have been developed to bridge this gap. This study analyzes the SM-LST relationship at a variety of LST acquisition times and its influence on SM disaggregation algorithms. Two years of in situ and satellite data over the central part of the river Duero basin and the Iberian Peninsula are used. In situ results show a strong anticorrelation of SM to daily maximum LST (R˜-0.5 to -0.8). This is confirmed with SMOS SM and MODIS LST Terra/Aqua at day time-overpasses (R˜-0.4 to -0.7). Better statistics are obtained when using MODIS LST day (R˜0.55 to 0.85; ubRMSD˜0.04 to 0.06 m3 /m3 ) than LST night (R˜0.45 to 0.80; ubRMSD˜0.04 to 0.07 m3 /m3 ) in the SM disaggregation. An averaged ensemble of day and night MODIS LST Terra/Aqua disaggregated SM estimates also leads to robust statistics (R˜0.55 to 0.85; ubRMSD˜0.04 to 0.07 m3 /m3 ) with a coverage improvement of ~10-20 %.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Comparison of SMOS vegetation optical thickness data with the proposed SMAP algorithm

Soil moisture is important to agriculture, weather, and climate. Current soil moisture networks measure at single points, while large spatial averages are needed for some crop, weather, and climate models. Large spatial average soil moisture can be measured by microwave satellites. Two missions, the European Space Agency\u27s Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) and NASA\u27s Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (SMAP), can or will measure L-band microwave radiation, which can see through denser vegetation and deeper in to the soil than previous missions that used X-band or C-band measurements. Both SMOS and SMAP require knowledge of vegetation optical thickness (τ) to retrieve soil moisture. SMOS is able to measure τ directly through multi-angular measurements. SMAP, which will measure at a single incidence angle, requires an outside source of τ data. The current SMAP baseline algorithm will use a climatology of optical vegetation measurements, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), to estimate τ. SMAP will convert the NDVI climatology to vegetation water content (VWC), then convert VWC to τ through the b parameter. This dissertation aimed to validate SMOS τ using county crop yield estimates in Iowa. SMOS τ was found to be noisy while still having a clear response to vegetation. Counties with higher yields had higher increases in $tau; over growing seasons, so it appears that SMOS τ is valid during the growing season. However, SMOS τ had odd behavior outside of growing seasons which can be attributed to soil tillage and residue management. Next, this dissertation attempted to estimate values of the b parameter at the satellite scale using SMOS τ data, county crop yields, and allometric relationships, such as harvest index. A new allometric relationship was defined, theta_gv_max, which is the ratio of maximum VWC to maximum dry biomass. While uncertainty in the estimated values of b was large, the values were close in magnitude to those found in literature for field-based studies. Finally, this dissertation compared SMOS τ to τ from SMAP\u27s NDVI-based algorithm. At the peak of the growing season, SMAP τ was similar in timing to SMOS τ, while SMAP τ was larger in magnitude than SMOS τ. The larger SMAP τ could be attributed to SMAP\u27s handling of vegetation scattering in its soil moisture retrieval algorithm. For one example case, the difference between SMAP τ and SMOS τ at the peak of the growing season did not appear to cause a large difference in retrieved soil moisture