An in-situ data based model to downscale radiometric satellite soil moisture products in the Upper Hunter Region of NSW, Australia

2019 ◽  
Vol 572 ◽  
pp. 820-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.P. Senanayake ◽  
I.-Y. Yeo ◽  
N. Tangdamrongsub ◽  
G.R. Willgoose ◽  
G.R. Hancock ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 650
Author(s):  
Pablo Sánchez-Gámez ◽  
Carolina Gabarro ◽  
Antonio Turiel ◽  
Marcos Portabella

The European Space Agency (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) missions are providing brightness temperature measurements at 1.4 GHz (L-band) for about 10 and 4 years respectively. One of the new areas of geophysical exploitation of L-band radiometry is on thin (i.e., less than 1 m) Sea Ice Thickness (SIT), for which theoretical and empirical retrieval methods have been proposed. However, a comprehensive validation of SIT products has been hindered by the lack of suitable ground truth. The in-situ SIT datasets most commonly used for validation are affected by one important limitation: They are available mainly during late winter and spring months, when sea ice is fully developed and the thickness probability density function is wider than for autumn ice and less representative at the satellite spatial resolution. Using Upward Looking Sonar (ULS) data from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), acquired all year round, permits overcoming the mentioned limitation, thus improving the characterization of the L-band brightness temperature response to changes in thin SIT. State-of-the-art satellite SIT products and the Cumulative Freezing Degree Days (CFDD) model are verified against the ULS ground truth. The results show that the L-band SIT can be meaningfully retrieved up to 0.6 m, although the signal starts to saturate at 0.3 m. In contrast, despite the simplicity of the CFDD model, its predicted SIT values correlate very well with the ULS in-situ data during the sea ice growth season. The comparison between the CFDD SIT and the current L-band SIT products shows that both the sea ice concentration and the season are fundamental factors influencing the quality of the thickness retrieval from L-band satellites.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Himmelbauer ◽  
Daniel Aberer ◽  
Lukas Schremmer ◽  
Ivana Petrakovic ◽  
Luca Zappa ◽  
...  

<p><span>The International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN, </span><span></span><span>) is an international cooperation to establish and maintain an open-source global data hosting facility, providing in-situ soil moisture data as well as accompanying soil variables. This database is an essential means for validating and improving global satellite soil moisture products as well as land surface -, climate- , and hydrological models.</span></p><p><span>For hydrological validation, the quality of used in-situ data is essential. The various independent local and regional in situ networks often do not follow standardized measurement techniques or protocols, collect their data in different units, at different depths and at various sampling rates. Besides, quality control is rarely applied and accessing the data is often not easy or feasible.</span></p><p><span>The ISMN was created to address the above-mentioned issues. Within the ISMN, in situ soil moisture measurements (surface and sub-surface) are collected, harmonized in terms of units and sampling rates, advanced quality control is applied and the data is then stored in a database and made available online, where users can download it for free. </span></p><p><span>Since its establishment in 2009 and with continuous financial support through the European Space Agency (ESA), the ISMN evolved into a widely used in situ data source growing continuously (in terms of data volume and users). Historic measurements starting in 1952 up to near–real time are available through the ISMN web portal. Currently, the ISMN consists of 60 networks with more than 2500 stations spread all over the globe. With a </span><span><span>steadily growing user community more than 3200 registered users strong</span></span><span> the value of the ISMN as a well-established and rich source of in situ soil moisture observations is well recognized. In fact, the ISMN is widely used in variety of scientific fields (e.g. climate, water, agriculture, disasters, ecosystems, weather, biodiversity, etc.). </span></p><p> <span>Our partner networks range from networks with a handful of stations to networks that are composed of over 400 sites, are supported with half yearly provider reports on statistical data about their network (e.g.: data download statistic, flagging statistic, etc.). </span></p><p><span>About 10’000 datasets are available through the web portal. However, the spatial coverage of in situ observations still needs to be improved. For example, in Africa and South America only sparse data are available. Innovative ideas, such as the inclusion of soil moisture data from low cost sensors (GROW observatory ) collected by citizen scientists, holds the potential of closing this gap, thus providing new information and knowledge.</span></p><p><span>In this session , we want to give an overview of the ISMN, its unique features and its support of data provider, who are willing to openly share their data, as well as hydrological researcher in need of freely available datasets.</span></p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Navid Jadidoleslam ◽  
Brian K Hornbuckle ◽  
Witold F. Krajewski ◽  
Ricardo Mantilla ◽  
Michael H. Cosh

L-band microwave satellite missions provide soil moisture information potentially useful for streamflow and hence flood predictions. However, these observations are also sensitive to the presence of vegetation that makes satellite soil moisture estimations prone to errors. In this study, the authors evaluate satellite soil moisture estimations from SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) and SMOS (Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity), and two distributed hydrologic models with measurements from in~situ sensors in the Corn Belt state of Iowa, a region dominated by annual row crops of corn and soybean. First, the authors compare model and satellite soil moisture products across Iowa using in~situ data for more than 30 stations. Then, they compare satellite soil moisture products with state-wide model-based fields to identify regions of low and high agreement. Finally, the authors analyze and explain the resulting spatial patterns with MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) vegetation indices and SMAP vegetation optical depth. The results indicate that satellite soil moisture estimations are drier than those provided by the hydrologic model and the spatial bias depends on the intensity of row-crop agriculture. The work highlights the importance of developing a revised SMAP algorithm for regions of intensive row-crop agriculture to increase SMAP utility in the real-time streamflow predictions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 293-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Al Bitar ◽  
Arnaud Mialon ◽  
Yann H. Kerr ◽  
François Cabot ◽  
Philippe Richaume ◽  
...  

Abstract. The objective of this paper is to present the multi-orbit (MO) surface soil moisture (SM) and angle-binned brightness temperature (TB) products for the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission based on a new multi-orbit algorithm. The Level 3 algorithm at CATDS (Centre Aval de Traitement des Données SMOS) makes use of MO retrieval to enhance the robustness and quality of SM retrievals. The motivation of the approach is to make use of the longer temporal autocorrelation length of the vegetation optical depth (VOD) compared to the corresponding SM autocorrelation in order to enhance the retrievals when an acquisition occurs at the border of the swath. The retrieval algorithm is implemented in a unique operational processor delivering multiple parameters (e.g. SM and VOD) using multi-angular dual-polarisation TB from MO. A subsidiary angle-binned TB product is provided. In this study the Level 3 TB V310 product is showcased and compared to SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) TB. The Level 3 SM V300 product is compared to the single-orbit (SO) retrievals from the Level 2 SM processor from ESA with aligned configuration. The advantages and drawbacks of the Level 3 SM product (L3SM) are discussed. The comparison is done on a global scale between the two datasets and on the local scale with respect to in situ data from AMMA-CATCH and USDA ARS Watershed networks. The results obtained from the global analysis show that the MO implementation enhances the number of retrievals: up to 9 % over certain areas. The comparison with the in situ data shows that the increase in the number of retrievals does not come with a decrease in quality, but rather at the expense of an increased time lag in product availability from 6 h to 3.5 days, which can be a limiting factor for applications like flood forecast but reasonable for drought monitoring and climate change studies. The SMOS L3 soil moisture and L3 brightness temperature products are delivered using an open licence and free of charge using a web application (https://www.catds.fr/sipad/). The RE04 products, versions 300 and 310, used in this paper are also available at ftp://ext-catds-cpdc:[email protected]/Land_products/GRIDDED/L3SM/RE04/.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 7263-7303 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Loew ◽  
F. Schlenz

Abstract. Validating coarse scale remote sensing soil moisture products requires a comparison of gridded data to point-like ground measurements. The necessary aggregation of in situ measurements to the footprint scale of a satellite sensor (>100 km2) introduces uncertainties in the validation of the satellite soil moisture product. Observed differences between the satellite product and in situ data are therefore partly attributable to these aggregation uncertainties. The present paper investigates different approaches to disentangle the error of the satellite product from the uncertainties associated to the up-scaling of the reference data. A novel approach is proposed, which allows for the quantification of the remote sensing soil moisture error using a temporally adaptive technique. It is shown that the point-to-area sampling error can be estimated within 0.0084 [m3/m3].


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jovan Kovačević ◽  
Željko Cvijetinović ◽  
Nikola Stančić ◽  
Nenad Brodić ◽  
Dragan Mihajlović

ESA CCI SM products have provided remotely-sensed surface soil moisture (SSM) content with the best spatial and temporal coverage thus far, although its output spatial resolution of 25 km is too coarse for many regional and local applications. The downscaling methodology presented in this paper improves ESA CCI SM spatial resolution to 1 km using two-step approach. The first step is used as a data engineering tool and its output is used as an input for the Random forest model in the second step. In addition to improvements in terms of spatial resolution, the approach also considers the problem of data gaps. The filling of these gaps is the initial step of the procedure, which in the end produces a continuous product in both temporal and spatial domains. The methodology uses combined active and passive ESA CCI SM products in addition to in situ soil moisture observations and the set of auxiliary downscaling predictors. The research tested several variants of Random forest models to determine the best combination of ESA CCI SM products. The conclusion is that synergic use of all ESA CCI SM products together with the auxiliary datasets in the downscaling procedure provides better results than using just one type of ESA CCI SM product alone. The methodology was applied for obtaining SSM maps for the area of California, USA during 2016. The accuracy of tested models was validated using five-fold cross-validation against in situ data and the best variation of model achieved RMSE, R2 and MAE of 0.0518 m3/m3, 0.7312 and 0.0374 m3/m3, respectively. The methodology proved to be useful for generating high-resolution SSM products, although additional improvements are necessary.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Ouaadi ◽  
Lionel Jarlan ◽  
Saïd Khabba ◽  
Jamal Ezzahar ◽  
Olivier Merlin

<p>Irrigation is the largest consumer of water in the world, with more than 70% of the world's fresh water dedicated to agriculture. In this context, we developed and evaluated a new method to predict daily to seasonal irrigation timing and amounts at the field scale using surface soil moisture (SSM) data assimilated into a simple  land surface model through a particle filter technique. The method is first tested using in situ SSM before using SSM products retrieved from Sentinel-1. Data collected on different wheat fields grown  in Morocco, for both flood and drip irrigation techniques, are used to assess the performance of the proposed method. With in situ data, the results are good. Seasonal amounts are retrieved with R > 0.98, RMSE <42 mm and bias<2 mm. Likewise, a good agreement is observed at the daily scale for flood irrigation where more than 70% of the irrigation events are detected with a time difference from actual irrigation events shorter than 4 days, when assimilating SSM observation every 6 days to mimics Sentinel-1 revisit time. Over the drip irrigated fields, the statistical metrics are R = 0.70, RMSE =28.5 mm and bias= -0.24 mm for irrigation amounts cumulated over 15 days. The approach is then evaluated using SSM products derived from Sentinel-1 data; statistical metrics are R= 0.64, RMSE= 28.78 mm and bias = 1.99 mm for irrigation amounts cumulated over 15 days. In addition to irrigated fields, the applicationof the developed methodover rainfed fieldsdid not detect any irrigation. This study opens perspectives for the regional retrieval of irrigation amounts and timing at the field scale and for mapping irrigated/non irrigated areas.</p>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document