Soil Moisture Estimation Using High-Resolution Spotlight TerraSAR-X Data

High-resolution and dual polarized Spotlight TerraSAR-X images are assessed for soil moisture parameter retrieval. This letter presents bare soil moisture estimation and estimation of moisture of vegetated areas. The bare soil moisture estimation is based on the Shi model. The Minimum Mean Square Error approach is used to determine the unknown parameters of the Shi model using ground measurements of volumetric moisture and SAR data. The soil moisture of vegetated areas is estimated using the vegetation and soil backscattering coefficients. The unknown parameters of vegetation and soil backscattering models were estimated using Tikhonov optimization. The experimental results showed that the used models provide good results for estimating bare soil moisture and moisture of vegetated areas.