Scaling of Satellite NearSurface Soil moisture Observations

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Scaling of Satellite Near-Surface Soil moisture
Observations

• Rocco Panciera

Supervisors Dr. Jeffrey Walker Prof. Jetse Kalma
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Structure of the presentation

• Introduction
• Statement of the problem
• Research Objectives
• Approach
• Progress to date
• Future work

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Significance of Soil Moisture

• Early warning systems
• Flood prediction infiltration
• Socio-economic activities
• Agriculture yield forecasting, management
  (pesticides etc), sediment transport
• Water management irrigation
• Policy planning and decision making
• Drought relief
• Global change
• trafficability
• Weather and climate
• Evapotranspiration latent and sensible heat
• Global water cycle

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Monitoring Soil Moisture

• Point data
• Continuous in time
• Spatial distribution?

• LS models
• Space-time variation
• Model physics?

• Remote sensing
• Global, frequent coverage
• Low resolution
• Top 5cm of soil
• Vegetation masking?

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Soil Moisture Remote Sensing

• Contrast of soil (2) and water (80) dielectric
  properties
• For smooth bare soil
• For vegetated soil
• where
• Tveg physical temperature of the soil
  (K)
• Tveg physical temperature of the
  vegetation (K)
• ?veg transmissivity of the vegetation
  layer
• ? single scattering albedo of the
  vegetation
• ep rough soil emissivity at polarisation
  p

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Soil Moisture Remote Sensing

• where
• ? Soil moisture

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Statement of the Problem

• Ancillary data requirement
• Soil temperature
• Vegetation water content
• Surface roughness
• Soil properties
• Vegetation scattering

• Large scale information
• 50km pixel

• Different scale
• 50km from satellite
• 50m from aircraft

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Research Objectives

• Develop method to reduce ground ancillary data
  requirements multiple view angles

• Develop method to downscale near-surface soil
  moisture observation at satellite footprint to
  higher resolution ancillary remotely sensed
  data

• Analyse applicability of retrieval algorithms at
  multiple scales

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Approach

• Field work
• Airborne data at multiple resolution (1km to 50m)
  and multiple angles with Polarimetric L-band
  Multibeam Radiometer (PLMR)
• Ground data on near-surface soil moisture and
  ancillary data

• Multi-angle algorithm development
• Modulate angle dependence of algorithm parameters

• Scaling of microwave observations
• Application of algorithm at fine observation
  scales
• Aggregation of retrieved soil moisture at coarser
  scales
• Comparison with value retrieved from coarse scale
  observation

• Downscaling technique development
• Use of high resolution visible, infrared and
  thermal infrared to characterize soil moisture
  spatial structure within PLMR microwave pixel

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Progress to Date

• Trial Field campaign
• PLMR test flown
• ground sampling strategy tested
• Instruments calibrated

PLMR microwave observations
Ground measurements
Ground sampling
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Future Work

• November 2005 field campaign
• Goulburn catchment, NSW.
• January 2006
• 2006
• Preliminary data analysis
• Scaling analysis
• Multi-angle algorithm development
• November 2006 field campaign
• Murrumbidgee catchment, Victoria
• 2007
• Downscaling technique development
• Thesis write up

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Thank you