Remote estimation of surface moisture over a watershed

Abstract

The author has identified the following significant results. Contoured analyses of moisture availability, moisture flux, sensible heat flux, thermal inertia, and day and nighttime temperatures over a Missouri watershed for a date in June and in September show that forests and creeks exhibit the highest values of moisture availability, whereas farmlands and villages are relatively dry. The distribution of moisture availability over agricultural districts differs significantly between the two cases. This difference is attributed to a change in the surface's vegetative canopy between June and September, with higher moisture availabilities found in the latter case. Horizontal variations of moisture, however, do indicate some relationship between moisture availability and both local rainfall accumulations and the nature of the terrain