scholarly journals Article Forecasts of Opportunity for Northern California Soil Moisture

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 713
Author(s):  
Cécile Penland ◽  
Megan D. Fowler ◽  
Darren L. Jackson ◽  
Robert Cifelli
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Forecast Errors ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Adaptive Technique ◽  
Data Adaptive ◽  
Socioeconomic Consequences ◽  
High Skill

Soil moisture anomalies underpin a number of critical hydrological phenomena with socioeconomic consequences, yet systematic studies of soil moisture predictability are limited. Here, we use a data-adaptive technique, Linear Inverse Modeling, which has proved useful as an indication of predictability in other fields, to investigate the predictability of soil moisture in northern California. This approach yields a model of soil moisture at 10 stations in the region, with results that indicate the possibility of skillful forecasts at each for lead times of 1–2 weeks. An important advantage of this model is the a priori identification of forecasts of opportunity—conditions under which the model’s forecasts may be expected to have particularly high skill. Given that forecast errors (and inversely, their skill) can be estimated in advance, these findings have the potential to greatly increase the utility of soil moisture forecasts for practical applications including drought and flood forecasting.

scholarly journals Monthly Weather Forecasts in a Pest Forecasting Context: Downscaling, Recalibration, and Skill Improvement

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (9) ◽  
pp. 1633-1638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hirschi ◽  
Christoph Spirig ◽  
Andreas P. Weigel ◽  
Pierluigi Calanca ◽  
Jörg Samietz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Insect Pest ◽  
Cydia Pomonella ◽  
Codling Moth ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Weather Forecasts ◽  
Weather Information ◽  
Agricultural Applications ◽  
Resampling Procedure ◽  
Skill Improvement

AbstractMonthly weather forecasts (MOFCs) were shown to have skill in extratropical continental regions for lead times up to 3 weeks, in particular for temperature and if weekly averaged. This skill could be exploited in practical applications for implementations exhibiting some degree of memory or inertia toward meteorological drivers, potentially even for longer lead times. Many agricultural applications fall into these categories because of the temperature-dependent development of biological organisms, allowing simulations that are based on temperature sums. Most such agricultural models require local weather information at daily or even hourly temporal resolution, however, preventing direct use of the spatially and temporally aggregated information of MOFCs, which may furthermore be subject to significant biases. By the example of forecasting the timing of life-phase occurrences of the codling moth (Cydia pomonella), which is a major insect pest in apple orchards worldwide, the authors investigate the application of downscaled weekly temperature anomalies of MOFCs for use in an impact model requiring hourly input. The downscaling and postprocessing included the use of a daily weather generator and a resampling procedure for creating hourly weather series and the application of a recalibration technique to correct for the original underconfidence of the forecast occurrences of codling moth life phases. Results show a clear skill improvement of up to 3 days in root-mean-square error over the full forecast range when incorporating MOFCs as compared with deterministic benchmark forecasts using climatological information for predicting the timing of codling moth life phases.

scholarly journals Synergetic Use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Data for Soil Moisture Mapping at Plot Scale

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Attarzadeh ◽  
Jalal Amini ◽  
Claudia Notarnicola ◽  
Felix Greifeneder
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Optical Data ◽  
Estimation Accuracy ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Single Polarization ◽  
Selection Of

This paper presents an approach for retrieval of soil moisture content (SMC) by coupling single polarization C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical data at the plot scale in vegetated areas. The study was carried out at five different sites with dominant vegetation cover located in Kenya. In the initial stage of the process, different features are extracted from single polarization mode (VV polarization) SAR and optical data. Subsequently, proper selection of the relevant features is conducted on the extracted features. An advanced state-of-the-art machine learning regression approach, the support vector regression (SVR) technique, is used to retrieve soil moisture. This paper takes a new look at soil moisture retrieval in vegetated areas considering the needs of practical applications. In this context, we tried to work at the object level instead of the pixel level. Accordingly, a group of pixels (an image object) represents the reality of the land cover at the plot scale. Three approaches, a pixel-based approach, an object-based approach, and a combination of pixel- and object-based approaches, were used to estimate soil moisture. The results show that the combined approach outperforms the other approaches in terms of estimation accuracy (4.94% and 0.89 compared to 6.41% and 0.62 in terms of root mean square error (RMSE) and R2), flexibility on retrieving the level of soil moisture, and better quality of visual representation of the SMC map.

scholarly journals Forecasting Vegetation Condition with a Bayesian Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (BARDL) Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward E. Salakpi ◽  
Peter D. Hurley ◽  
James M. Muthoka ◽  
Adam B. Barrett ◽  
Andrew Bowell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Lead Time ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Early Warning Systems ◽  
Ar Model ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Vegetation Condition ◽  
Early Action ◽  
Auto Regressive

Abstract. Droughts form a large part of climate/weather-related disasters reported globally. In Africa, pastoralists living in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) are the worse affected. Prolonged dry spells that cause vegetation stress in these regions have resulted in the loss of income and livelihoods. To curb this, global initiatives like the Paris Agreement and the United Nations recognised the need to establish Early Warning Systems (EWS) to save lives and livelihoods. Existing EWS use a combination of Satellite Earth Observation (EO) based biophysical indicators like the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and socio-economic factors to measure and monitor droughts. Most of these EWS rely on expert knowledge in estimating upcoming drought conditions without using forecast models. Recent research has shown that the use of robust algorithms like Auto-Regression, Gaussian Processes and Artificial Neural Networks can provide very skilled models for forecasting vegetation condition at short to medium range lead times. However, to enable preparedness for early action, forecasts with a longer lead time are needed. The objective of this research work is to develop models that forecast vegetation conditions at longer lead times on the premise that vegetation condition is controlled by factors like precipitation and soil moisture. To achieve this, we used a Bayesian Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (BARDL) modelling approach which enabled us to factor in lagged information from Precipitation and Soil moisture levels into our VCI forecast model. The results showed a ∼2-week gain in the forecast range compared to the univariate AR model used as a baseline. The R2 scores for the Bayesian ARDL model were 0.94, 0.85 and 0.74, compared to the AR model's R2 of 0.88, 0.77 and 0.65 for 6, 8 and 10 weeks lead time respectively.

scholarly journals A new method for estimating of evapotranspiration and surface soil moisture from optical and thermal infrared measurements: the simplified triangle

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby N. Carlson ◽  
George Petropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Infrared Measurements

Earth Observation (EO) provides a promising approach towards deriving accurate spatiotemporal estimates of key parameters characterizing land surface interactions, such as latent (LE) and sensible (H) heat fluxes as well as soil moisture content. This paper proposes a very simple method to implement, yet reliable to calculate evapotranspiration fraction (EF) and surface moisture availability (Mo) from remotely sensed imagery of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and surface radiometric temperature (Tir). The method is unique in that it derives all of its information solely from these two images. As such, it does not depend on knowing ancillary surface or atmospheric parameters, nor does it require the use of a land surface model. The procedure for computing spatiotemporal estimates of these important land surface parameters is outlined herein stepwise for practical application by the user. Moreover, as the newly developedscheme is not tied to any particular sensor, it can also beimplemented with technologically advanced EO sensors launched recently or planned to be launched such as Landsat 8 and Sentinel 3. The latter offers a number of key advantages in terms of future implementation of the method and wider use for research and practical applications alike.

scholarly journals Large Scale Operational Soil Moisture Mapping from Passive MW Radiometry: SMOS product evaluation in Europe & USA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khidir Abdalla Kwal Deng ◽  
Salim Lamine ◽  
Andrew Pavlides ◽  
Yansong Bao ◽  
George Petropoulos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Product Evaluation ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Different Seasons ◽  
Lower Correlation ◽  
Land Types

Earth Observation (EO) allows deriving from a range of sensors, often globally, operational estimates of surface soil moisture (SSM) at range of spatiotemporal resolutions. Yet, an evaluation of the accuracy of those products in a variety of environmental conditions has been often limited. In this study the accuracy of the SMOS SSM global operational product across 2 continents (USA, and Europe) is investigated. SMOS predictions were compared against near concurrent in-situ SSM measurements from the FLUXNET observational network. In total, 7 experimental sites were used to assess the accuracy of SMOS derived soil moisture for 2 complete years of observations (2010 to 2011). The accuracy of the SMOS SSM product is investigated in different seasons for the seasonal cycle as well as different continents and land types. Results showed a generally reasonable agreement between the SMOS product and the in-situ soil moisture measurements in the 0-5 cm soil moisture layer. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) in most cases was close to 0.1 m3 m-3 (minimum 0.067 m3 m-3). With a few exceptions, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was found up to approx. 55%. Grassland, shrublands and woody savanna land cover types attained a satisfactory agreement between satellite derived and in-situ measurements but needleleaf forests had lower correlation. Better agreement was found for the grassland sites in both continents. Seasonally, summer and autumn underperformed spring and winter. Our study results provide supportive evidence of the potential value of this operational product for meso-scale studies in a range of practical applications, helping to address key challenges present nowadays linked to food and water security.

scholarly journals Ensemble long-term soil moisture forecast using hydrological modeling

RBRH ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bibiana Rodrigues Colossi ◽  
Carlos Eduardo Morelli Tucci
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Computing Time ◽  
Ensemble Member ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Hydrologic Simulation ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Group B

ABSTRACT Long-term soil moisture forecasting allows for better planning in sectors as agriculture. However, there are still few studies dedicated to estimate soil moisture for long lead times, which reflects the difficulties associated with this topic. An approach that could help improving these forecasts performance is to use ensemble predictions. In this study, a soil moisture forecast for lead times of one, three and six months in the Ijuí River Basin (Brazil) was developed using ensemble precipitation forecasts and hydrologic simulation. All ensemble members from three climatologic models were used to run the MGB hydrological model, generating 207 soil moisture forecasts, organized in groups: (A) for each model, the most frequent soil moisture interval predicted among the forecasts made with each ensemble member, (B) using each model’s mean precipitation, (C) considering a super-ensemble, and (D) the mean soil moisture interval predicted among group B forecasts. The results show that long-term soil moisture based on precipitation forecasts can be useful for identifying periods drier or wetter than the average for the studied region. Nevertheless, estimation of exact soil moisture values remains limited. Forecasts groups B and D performed similarly to groups A and C, and require less data management and computing time.

scholarly journals The suitability of remotely sensed soil moisture for improving operational flood forecasting

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 2343-2357 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Wanders ◽  
D. Karssenberg ◽  
A. de Roo ◽  
S. M. de Jong ◽  
M. F. P. Bierkens
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
Hydrological Model ◽  
Flood Forecasting ◽  
Remotely Sensed ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Validation Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Discharge Data

Abstract. We evaluate the added value of assimilated remotely sensed soil moisture for the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) and its potential to improve the prediction of the timing and height of the flood peak and low flows. EFAS is an operational flood forecasting system for Europe and uses a distributed hydrological model (LISFLOOD) for flood predictions with lead times of up to 10 days. For this study, satellite-derived soil moisture from ASCAT (Advanced SCATterometer), AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System) and SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) is assimilated into the LISFLOOD model for the Upper Danube Basin and results are compared to assimilation of discharge observations only. To assimilate soil moisture and discharge data into the hydrological model, an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is used. Information on the spatial (cross-) correlation of the errors in the satellite products, is included to ensure increased performance of the EnKF. For the validation, additional discharge observations not used in the EnKF are used as an independent validation data set. Our results show that the accuracy of flood forecasts is increased when more discharge observations are assimilated; the mean absolute error (MAE) of the ensemble mean is reduced by 35%. The additional inclusion of satellite data results in a further increase of the performance: forecasts of baseflows are better and the uncertainty in the overall discharge is reduced, shown by a 10% reduction in the MAE. In addition, floods are predicted with a higher accuracy and the continuous ranked probability score (CRPS) shows a performance increase of 5–10% on average, compared to assimilation of discharge only. When soil moisture data is used, the timing errors in the flood predictions are decreased especially for shorter lead times and imminent floods can be forecasted with more skill. The number of false flood alerts is reduced when more observational data is assimilated into the system. The added values of the satellite data is largest when these observations are assimilated in combination with distributed discharge observations. These results show the potential of remotely sensed soil moisture observations to improve near-real time flood forecasting in large catchments.

Vision-Based Trajectory Generation for a Two-Link Robotic Arm Using Quadtree Decomposition and Curve Smoothing

2010 ◽  
Vol 108-111 ◽  
pp. 1439-1445
Author(s):  
Shahed Shojaeipour ◽  
Sallehuddin Mohamed Haris ◽  
Ehsan Eftekhari ◽  
Ali Shojaeipour ◽  
Ronak Daghigh
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Trajectory Generation ◽  
Robotic Arm ◽  
Generation System ◽  
End Effector ◽  
Quadtree Decomposition ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Robot Trajectory ◽  
Curve Smoothing

In this article, the development of an autonomous robot trajectory generation system based on a single eye-in-hand webcam, where the workspace map is not known a priori, is described. The system makes use of image processing methods to identify locations of obstacles within the workspace and the Quadtree Decomposition algorithm to generate collision free paths. The shortest path is then automatically chosen as the path to be traversed by the robot end-effector. The method was implemented using MATLAB running on a PC and tested on a two-link SCARA robotic arm. The tests were successful and indicate that the method could be feasibly implemented on many practical applications.

scholarly journals Intrinsic Predictability of the 20 May 2013 Tornadic Thunderstorm Event in Oklahoma at Storm Scales

2016 ◽  
Vol 144 (4) ◽  
pp. 1273-1298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunji Zhang ◽  
Fuqing Zhang ◽  
David J. Stensrud ◽  
Zhiyong Meng
Keyword(s):  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Numerical Weather Prediction Model ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Forecast Errors ◽  
Ensemble Forecasts ◽  
Positive Feedbacks ◽  
Convective Storms ◽  
Cold Pools ◽  
Initial Errors ◽  
Environmental Instability

Abstract Using a high-resolution convection-allowing numerical weather prediction model, this study seeks to explore the intrinsic predictability of the severe tornadic thunderstorm event on 20 May 2013 in Oklahoma from its preinitiation environment to initiation, upscale organization, and interaction with other convective storms. This is accomplished through ensemble forecasts perturbed with minute initial condition uncertainties that were beyond detection capabilities of any current observational platforms. It was found that these small perturbations, too small to modify the initial mesoscale environmental instability and moisture fields, will be propagated and evolved via turbulence within the PBL and rapidly amplified in moist convective processes through positive feedbacks associated with updrafts, phase transitions of water species, and cold pools, thus greatly affecting the appearance, organization, and development of thunderstorms. The forecast errors remain nearly unchanged even when the initial perturbations (errors) were reduced by as much as 90%, which strongly suggests an inherently limited predictability for this thunderstorm event for lead times as short as 3–6 h. Further scale decomposition reveals rapid error growth and saturation in meso-γ scales (regardless of the magnitude of initial errors) and subsequent upscale growth into meso-β scales.

scholarly journals Stability of time-delay systems via Lyapunov functions

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos F. Alastruey ◽  
Manuel de la Sen
Keyword(s):  
Lyapunov Function ◽  
Lyapunov Functions ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Original System ◽  
Delay Systems ◽  
Multivariable Systems ◽  
Time Delay Systems ◽  
Input Output ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
System A

In this paper, a Lyapunov function candidate is introduced for multivariable systems with inner delays, without assuminga prioristability for the nondelayed subsystem. By using this Lyapunov function, a controller is deduced. Such a controller utilizes an input–output description of the original system, a circumstance that facilitates practical applications of the proposed approach.

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