Soil moisture mapping in permafrost regions - An outlook to Sentinel-1

Soil moisture is of high importance in permafrost regions. Within the DUE Permafrost project, adjustments to the 1 km Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) product, derived from ENVISAT ASAR Global Monitoring mode data, have been made to account for some of the conditions encountered at high latitudes. Soil moisture retrieval from SAR requires taking into account the presence of water bodies. This is challenging in regions of permafrost, as the majority of lakes in tundra environments are smaller than the spatial resolution of global and regional land cover datasets. A method to account for the presence of water bodies at and below the 1 km scale in support of SSM retrieval is presented. A high potential for transfer of the presented methodologies to the Sentinel-1 mission is apparent due to the consistency of measurements with ENVISAT ASAR.