Evaluation of an Australian ERS-1 SAR scene pertaining to soil moisture measurement

Author

Sabburg, Jeffrey M.

Author_Institution

Univ. of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Qld., Australia

Volume

3

fYear

1994

fDate

8-12 Aug 1994

Firstpage

1424

Abstract

The empirical radar scattering model of Oh et al. (1992) was used to evaluate the feasibility of ERS-1 SAR for measuring soil moisture content of an agricultural area of Australia. Groundtruthing of three bare vertisol soils and a pasture was performed during one descending pass on 19th October, 1992. A volumetric moisture content range of 16% to 47% for a 0 to 15 cm depth was measured for the soils. A plant biomass of 3955.2 kgha^-1 was determined for the pasture. It was concluded that it is possible to measure the moisture content of three of the sites using the ERS-1 SAR to an accuracy of ±10% for the first 5 cm of the surface

Keywords

geophysical techniques; hydrological techniques; microwave imaging; moisture measurement; radar applications; radar imaging; remote sensing by radar; soil; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; AD 1992 10 19; Australia; ERS-1; Eastern Darling Downs; Queensland; SAR; agricultural area; empirical radar scattering model; farmland; geophysical measurement technique; hydrology; land surface terrain mapping; microwave SHF; moisture content; pasture; plant biomass; radar remote sensing; soil moisture; synthetic aperture radar; vertisol; water content; Australia; Backscatter; Extraterrestrial measurements; Layout; Moisture measurement; Radar imaging; Rough surfaces; Soil measurements; Soil moisture; Surface roughness;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 1994. IGARSS '94. Surface and Atmospheric Remote Sensing: Technologies, Data Analysis and Interpretation., International

Conference_Location

Pasadena, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1497-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.1994.399458

Filename

399458