THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE TRANSFORMING UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS Critical Path Planning

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MoistureMap Multi-sensor Retrieval of Soil
Moisture Mahdi AllahmoradiPhD
CandidateSupervisor Jeffrey WalkerContributor
sDongryeol Ryu, Chris Rudiger
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Research Aim

• This research will test the hypothesis that more
  accurate soil moisture information can be derived
  from SMOS if vegetation and soil temperature
  information are derived from other coincident
  remote sensing observations at higher resolution.

Ground/RS Data, Models,
SMOS
MoistureMap
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SMOS overview

• SMOS
• Approximate launch date May 2009
• Lifetime Minimum 3 years
• Frequency L-band (21cm - 1.4 GHz)
• Orbit Sun-synchronous
• Overpass time 6 am - 6 pm
• Temporal resolution 3 Days
• Spatial resolution 40 - 50 km (35 km at centre
  of Field of View)

SOURCE ESA
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Theoretical Aspect

• The theory behind microwave remote sensing of
  soil moisture is based on the large contrast
  between the dielectric properties of liquid water
  and dry soil.
• - For smooth bare soil (Plancks law)
• - Vegetated soil (Tau - omega model)
• equation of Ulaby et al. (1986)

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Vegetation Effect
Vegetation Effect
Jackson, 93
Wigneron et al. 07
Estimation of VWC using Vegetation indices
Reduced sensitivity to VWC changes in dense
vegetation (Jackson, 2004)
SWIR 1640 nm suitable for croplands SWIR 2130 nm
suitable for native vegetation (Maggioni, et al.
2006)
b, b and b are empirical parameters
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Brightness Temperature ? Soil Moisture
Tb
Modis Data
Land Cover
MTSAT 1R WindSat Data
Soil Temperature
Modis Aqua or WindSat
Vegetation Water Content or LAI
Maybe WindSat Data
Surface Roughness
NAFE ground data
Soil Texture
Soil Moisture
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Spaceborne Remote Sensors

• MODIS
• Terra launched December 1999
• Aqua launched May 2002
• Design Lifetime 6 years
• No. of Bands 36
• Orbit Sun-synchronous
• Overpass time 1030 am (Terra) 1330 pm (Aqua)
• Temporal resolution 2 days
• Spatial resolution of bands 250 m (1-2)
• 500 m (3-7) and 1 km (8-36)

SOURCE NASA
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Spaceborne Remote Sensors

• WindSat
• Launched on 6th January 2003
• Lifetime Minimum 3 years
• Frequencies 6.8, 10.7, 18.7, 23.8, 37.0 GHz
• Orbit Sun-synchronous
• Overpass time 6 am / 6 pm
• Spatial resolution 813 km (for 37.0 GHz)

SOURCE US NAVAL RESEARCH LAB
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Spaceborne Remote Sensors

• MTSAT-1R
• Launched February 2005
• Lifetime 5 years for meteorological function, 10
  years for aviation function
• Bands visible, Infrared (1-4)
• orbit Geostationary
• Temporal resolution 30 minutes
• Spatial resolution visible (1 km nadir), IR1-4
  (4km nadir)

SOURCE JAPAN METHEOROLOGICAL AGENCY
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Algorithm Development
NAFE Ground Data
Algorithm
Remotely Sensed Data
Modis Aqua/Terra
Soil Temperature
WindSat
MTSAT 1R
Vegetation Water Content
SMOS
NAFE Airborne Data
Soil Moisture
Verification