Surface soil moisture estimation using active microwave ERS wind scatterometer and SAR data

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Mehrez Zribi, Sylvie Le Hégarat-Mascle, Catherine Ottlé, B. Kammoun, Christine Guérin

Published: 2003, Last Modified: 05 Mar 2025IGARSS 2003EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: This paper presents an original methodology to retrieve surface (< 5 cm) soil moisture over low vegetated regions using the two active microwave instruments of ERS satellite. The developed algorithm takes advantage of the multi-angular configuration and high temporal resolution of the Wind Scatterometer (WSC) combined with the SAR high spatial resolution. High correlations (R/sup 2/ greater than 0.8) are observed for three studied watersheds in France with an rms error smaller than 4% between real and retrieved moistures.