Remote sensing of soil moisture using EMAC/ESAR data

Presents the first results of surface soil moisture retrieval using data from the European Multisensor Airborne Campaign/Experimental Synthetic Aperture Radar (EMAC/ESAR) collected on April 9, 1994 in the Zwalm catchment, Belgium. The authors apply a theoretical backscattering model to investigate the sensitivity of EMAC/ESAR backscattering coefficients to surface parameters. By comparing the predicted backscattering coefficients to the observed ones, they conclude that current measurement techniques for surface roughness parameters in remote sensing campaigns are not accurate enough for retrieving soil moisture using theoretical models. A method based on simultaneous retrieval of surface roughness parameters and soil moisture using multiple ESAR measurements is hence proposed. Promising results on retrieved soil moisture confirm the validity of the proposed method