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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #92125
Title: USE OF PASSIVE MICROWAVE REMOTE SENSING TO MONITOR SOIL MOISTURE

Author
item WIGNERON, JEAN - AVIGNON, FRANCE
item SCHMUGGE, THOMAS
item CHANZY, ANDRE - AVIGNON, FRANCE
item CALVET, JEAN - TOULOUSE, FRANCE
item KERR, YANN - TOULOUSE, FRANCE

Submitted to: Agronomie Agriculture Environment
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the current statue of soil moisture remote sensing for a relatively new journal. The basic physics of microwave soil moisture sensing is presented along with examples of results.

Technical Abstract: Surface soil moisture is a key variable to describe the water and energy exchanges at the land surface/atmosphere interface. However, soil moisture is highly variable in both space and time. Passive microwave remote sensing has great potential for providing estimates of soil moisture with good temporal frequency (daily) and at regional scales (10 km). This paper reviews the various methods for the remote sensing of soil moisture with microwave radiometers. Potential applications using either airborne or satellite observations are discussed in the fields of agronomy, hydrology, and meteorology. Emphasis in this paper is given to relatively new microwave techniques and of temporal soil moisture information analysis. In particular, aperture synthesis techniques which enhances the prospects for obtaining soil moisture information on a global basis from space.