INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Satellite Remote Sensing for Soil

Moisture and Global Products

Dr. N. R. Patel
Scientist-SG
Agric. & Soil Department, IIRS
nrpatel@iirs.gov.in
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

 Soil moisture is one of the crucial variables in hydrological processes, which influences
the exchange of water and energy fluxes at the land surface / atmosphere interface.

 Soil moisture has also been widely recognized as a key variable in numerous
environmental studies including agro-meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, and climate
change

 Accurate estimate of the spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture is critical for
numerous meteorological and environmental studies.

 Direct observations of soil moisture are currently restricted to discrete measurements

at specific locations, and such point-based measurements do not represent the spatial
distribution because soil moisture is highly variable both spatially and temporally.

 Recent technological advances in satellite remote sensing have shown that soil
moisture can be measured by a variety of remote sensing techniques such optical,
thermal and active and passive, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Soil Moisture : A critical variable for life on the earth

 Knowledge of the state of soil moisture and its spatial and temporal dynamics
is therefore essential for wide range of meteorological, climatologic and
hydrological applications. Such applications range from weather and climate
prediction to early warning systems (e.g. flood forecasting), climate-sensitive
socio-economic activities (e.g. agriculture and water management) and policy
planning (e.g. drought relief and global warming).
Applications
 Agricultural water management
 Agril. drought monitoring
 Improving crop yield forecasting methods
 Improvement of regional/meso-scale atmosphere modeling.
 Understanding coupling of biogeochemical cycles (water-
carbon-nitrogen)
 Hydrological budget & planning
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Utility of soil moisture: Local to Global

scale
 Improving medium-range weather forecasting by incorporating measured
soil moisture on a 30-km grid daily;
 Improving on-farm irrigation scheduling and efficiency, and improving
crop yield modeling at scales of 10 m to 100 m and 1 to 3 days.
 Improving agricultural drought monitoring and assessment at regional
scale.
 Better quantifying water use, storage, and runoff to monitor existing
resources and to assist decision makers in allocating limited resources or
coordinating relief efforts
 Improving climate models, particularly for annual and inter-annual
variability, so that they represent the land surface hydrologic processes
accurately. Measured soil moisture can be used as a state variable
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Ground Measurement Techniques

 Soil moisture is characterized by the amount of water held in a certain
mass or volume of soil and is usually expressed in one of two ways :
gravimetric and volumetric soil moisture.

• Gravimetric soil moisture (GSM)

• Volumetric soil moisture (VSM)

Volumetric soil moisture (%)

= gravimetric soil moisture (%) x dry bulk
density (gcm-3)

New Instrumentations
• Gypsum Block
• The ThetaProbe
• Time Domain Relectometry ThetaProbe Unit
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Conventional Methods of Measuring Soil Water

 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Limitations of ground measurement techniques & models

 Area representative precise in-situ measurements are in

general expensive and tedious due to large variability in soil
moisture content and soil properties over short distances
(Grayson and Western, 1998) ,
 High level of uncertainty associated with continental scale
between the different models when using the same input
parameters and atmospheric forcing (Houser et al., 2002).
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture

Table : Summary of remote sensing techniques for soil moisture estimation
( Engman, 1991; Moran et al., 2004).
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Optical Remote Sensing

6  2
Shortwave Infrared water stress Index SIWSI 
6  2
MODIS channel 2 - 841 to 876 nm
channel 6 - 1628 to 1652 nm.
Soil moisture measurements by Theta Probe:
Two site : Udaipur (sub-humid), Jaipur (semi-
arid)
First (6-10 Aug, 2007) Campaign : 15 (1km2)
sites, 3-5 measurement/site,
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Thermal Remote sensing

Interpretation of Thermal Imagery
Thermal inertia describes the ability of
the soil to resist temperature change.
The thermal inertia of water is similar
to that of soils and rocks, but during
the day
water bodies have a cooler S.T than The thermal Inertia (P) is expressed by –
soils and rocks.
At night the S.T are reversed with water P = k. . C
becoming warmer than soils and rocks. Where, k is the thermal conductivity, 
is the density of the medium, and C is the
Vegetation has a warm signature during specific heat of the medium
nighttime and has cooler signature
compared to adjacent soils during
daytime.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

NDVI-Ts triangle : parameterization of dry and wet edges

• NDVI is strongly correlated with the amount of vegetation, but it is often referred
to as a greenness index rather than a moisture index

• The surface temperature is more sensitive to water stress due to the relationship
between leaf temperature and transpiration.

• As the transpiration rate is reduced owing to plant water deficit, leaf temperature
rises relative to air temperature

Thus, the combination of

NDVI and Land surface
temperature can provide
more complete
information on soil
moisture at the surface
A conceptual LST-NDVI triangle
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

The TVDI is calculated using equation

where LST is the observed surface temperature at a given pixel; NDVI is the observed
normalized difference vegetation index; and a and b are the intercept and slope of the
dry edge (the upper straight line in the triangle) calculated from the NDVI–LST space
regression with small intervals of NDVI (LSTmax= a + bNDVI), where LSTmax is the
maximum surface temperature observation for a given NDVI.

The lower horizontal line of the triangle represents the wet edge (LSTmin). LSTmin can be
calculated by averaging a group of points in the lower limits of the scatterplots (Wan et
al., 2004). The TVDI values range from 0 to 1: TVDI = 1 at the dry edge, indicating
no evaporation from the soil or limited moisture supply; and TVDI = 0 at the wet edge,
indicating maximum evaporation from the soil or
unlimited moisture supply.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Soil moisture : Key hydrological variable that controls energy and

water cycle at the earth surface
Soil moisture sampling

Data/methods
MODIS Reflectance and land surface temperature Products (level 2)
In-situ soil moisture measurements (Two field campaigns, 3 days each)
by Theta probe
Parameterization of Ts/NDVI space
TVDI = (Ts – Tsmin)/(a + bNDVI – Tsmin)

18 april, 2006 28 October, 2006

Soil moisture (vol%)
(18th April 2008)

Intl. J. of Remote Sensing, 29(14):4219-4235(2007).

 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Soil moisture (0-45 cm) Soil moisture (5 x 5 km) by

by TVDI/soil moisture relation Linear scaling of TVDI based on Wmax
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

April, 2006 campaign October, 2006 campaign

35 40
33
31 35

Soil moisture ( Vol %)

Soil moistire (vol%)

29
30
27
25 25
23
21 20 5cm (R2 = 0.33)
15cm R2 = 0.62
19 30cm R2 = 0.61 15cm (R2 = 0.30)
15
17 2
45cm R = 0.49 30cm (R2 = 0.39)
15 10
0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
TVDI TVDI

Observation/Results
 Negative relation between TVDI and soil moisture

 TVDI from MODIS explained more variance (R2) in soil moisture during
April as compared to October in western UP

 Approach based on Ts/NDVI triangle is less sensitive to soil moisture

when NDVI > 0.4
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
Apparent Thermal Inertia based method
MODIS LST 8day 1km MODIS reflectance
(2002- 2008) 500m (2002- 2008)

Aggregation 1 km

Narrowband -broadband
Day/night LST
In-situ SM Albedo (A)
(10-14 Apr, 2008)
∆T

Apparent Thermal
Inertia Soil water constants
(FC/PWP)
Soil moisture saturation index
(SMSI)

Validation Soil moisture image

(Vol %)

Method for Soil moisture estimation from MODIS measurements

 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Soil water constant : Field water capacity & Permanent wilting point

pedo-transfer functions + soil sampling of soilscape units

Maximum AWC FWC

 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Apparent thermal Inertia Albedo

(14 April, 2008) (14 April, 2008)
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Soil moisture saturation

SMSI (14th April 2008) index (SMSI)

ATI i  ATI min

SMSI 
ATI max  ATI min
ATI i Is pixel level ATI of given time period

ATI min Is pixel level absolute minimum of long-term ATI

(2002-2008)
ATI max Is pixel level absolute maximum of long-term ATI
(2002-2008)
SMSI
Where, ΔT is day-night
ATI 
1  A temperature difference, A is
T surface albedo
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Soil moisture (vol %) by linear scaling of SMSI

 t   SMSI  sat  res   res
Soil moisture (14th April, 2008)
 t  = Volumetric soil moisture
SMSI = soil moisture saturation index
 sat = saturated soil moisture content (field capacity)

 res = volumetric residual soil moisture content (wilting point)

35

Observed Soil moisture

2
R = 0.748
30 RMSE = 3.0 %

25

(vol %)
20
15
10
5
0
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0
Estimated soil moisture (vol %)
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Validation of estimates of SM at different depths

35

30

Measured SM (Vol %)
25

20

15

5cm ( R2 = 0.613)
10
15cm (R2 = 0.621)
5
30cm (R2 = 0.725)

0
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0
Estim ated SM (Vol %)

5 cm 15 cm 30 cm

Reasonably good agreement between measured soil moisture

and estimates from MODIS land products
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
Microwave Remote Sensing for Soil Moisture Estimation
Parameters affecting soil moisture retrieval
o Frequency or Wavelength

The frequency of incident radiation has a direct relationship with the

penetration depth in the surface. The L and C bandwidths are the most
commonly used wavelengths for soil moisture estimation. The longer
wavelengths (L-band) penetrate deeper in the soil surface and /or vegetation
canopy. In sparse vegetation, L band interacts more with underlying surface
rather than vegetation, reducing its sensitivity to vegetation.

o Incidence angle

The sensitivity of microwave sensor to soil moisture decreases when the  * '
incidence angle increases. At higher incidence angle, the vegetation  
2 *  ' '
intercepts more of the signal and attenuates it. The energy backscattered by
vegetation reduces the contribution of soil to the total backscattering. The
optimal soil moisture can be derived using low incidence angle.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

o Polarization

Active & passive microwave systems are capable of measuring the backscattering and emission response
from the surface using different polarization configurations. Active sensors can measure backscatter as co-
polarized (HH and VV) and cross-polarized (HV and VH). Passive sensors measure the emission in V or H
polarization. These polarizations can have different penetration depths for the same frequency and the soil
surface characteristics and the ratio of response between polarizations is valuable for inferring soil and
vegetation properties

o Soil texture

The reliance of the dielectric constant on soil texture is a function of variation of water retention by soil
particles. The sensitivity of soil texture to dielectric constant is lower in dry soil, and higher in wet soil
conditions. Different soil textures have distinct patterns of soil moisture content and soil drainage. Soil
texture is closely related to dynamics of soil moisture spatial and temporal distribution.

o Topography

The local incidence angle due to variation in topography modifies the backscattering from the soil surface.
The surface facing the sensor produces higher radar backscatter due to its geometry. However, a surface
facing in the opposite direction to the sensor produces a limited or no backscatter for similar surface soil
moisture conditions. For passive microwave, topography, roughness has lesser impact on the signal because
of the larger sensor footprint.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

o Surface roughness

The surface roughness is a measure of the irregularities of

the surface geometry which has a significant effect on the
variation of radar backscattering amount. The degree of
roughness or smoothness of a surface depends on the
wavelength of the incidence energy. Higher surface
roughness increases the backscattering by increasing the
total emitting surface.

o Vegetation characteristics

Vegetation cover is the most important factor that

influences the retrieval of soil moisture from microwave
remote sensing. The degree of its influence on the
retrieval of soil moisture depends upon physical and
structural properties of vegetation cover. Canopy moisture
content, height of crop and crop biomass etc. are
important vegetation variables to be considered for
retrieval of soil moisture.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Active Microwave RS for Soil Moisture Estimation

 In active microwave methods, a microwave pulse is sent and received. The power of the received signal
is compared with which was sent to determine the backscattering coefficient of the surface, which has
been shown to be sensitive to soil moisture.

 The most common imaging active microwave configuration is the synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which
transmits a series of pulses as the radar antenna traverses the scene.

 For radar, the total backscatter from the surface is the sum of three components:

the first term is the soil surface backscatterer, modified by the two-way attenuation through a
vegetation layer of opacity τc. The second and third terms represent the backscatter from the
vegetation volume and the interaction between the vegetation and soil surface, respectively (Ulaby et
al., 1996).
For bare or surfaces with little vegetation, the contribution dominates the received signal and is influenced
primarily by the soil moisture and surface roughness.
For densely vegetated areas, the backscatter is determined largely by volumetric scattering from the
vegetation canopy.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Approaches of Soil Moisture Estimation

 Empirical Approach

o Empirical models are generally derived from experimental measurements

to establish useful empirical relationships for inversion of soil moisture
from backscattering observations.

o An example of an empirical method has been proposed by Shoshany et

al. (2000), who used the normalized backscatter moisture index (NBMI)
as a basis for their soil moisture retrieval algorithm:
where σ0t1 and σ0t2 are the backscatter coefficients at
different time steps and ar and br are empirical
parameters fitted from in situ soil moisture
observations.
This approach minimizes the impact of other factors such as soil
texture, surface roughness, and vegetation because they usually
change slowly with time (Engman and Chauhan, 1995).
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
Promising approaches using SAR sensors for surface soil moisture
(ms) estimation
Semi-empirical algorithm Moran et al.
Generally uses SAR images of single incidence angle, frequency and polarization. (2000);
Requires multiple passes and/or ancillary information. Often scene-or site-dependent.

SAR for ms change detection Shoshany et

Requires multiple passes. Assumes temporal variability of roughness ( R) and al. (2000)
vegetation biomass (V) is at longer time scale than that of ms. change in SAR 
between repeat passes results from the change in ms. High potential for operational
application.
SAR data fusion – passive and active microwave Lakshmi et al.
Generally, uses active  to determine fine resolution V and R, and passive TB to (2000)
estimate ms OR downscales passive-derived ms with fine resolution .
SAR data fusion – microwave and optical Wang et al.
Based on complementarity or interchangeability of optical and SAR data. Simplifies (2003)
the inverse problem for ms estimation.
SAR plus microwave scattering model Tansey and
Empirical, semi-empirical and theoretical models available. Models are inverted to Millington (2001
estimate ms from . Advantage: high accuracy.
Disadvantage: difficult model parameterization.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
Active Microwave RS for Soil Moisture Estimation
Improved Empirical Approaches for Soil Moisture Assessment
Removal of soil texture, surface roughness & crop
cover effects:

• Normalization of soil moisture content to

moisture content above wilting point (SM_WAP)
• Use of multi polarization
• Combine use of low & high
incidence angle data
• Use of Polarization ratios
• Use of multi-frequency SAR
Soil moisture estimation models developed using Envisat
ASAR using multi incidence angles & polarizations

Variation of like polarisation ratios Multi-frequency SAR response to deeper layer soil
with surface roughness moisture (SIR –C/X SAR)
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
Approaches of Soil Moisture Estimation

 Semi - empirical Approach

o A simple approach in the form a semi-

empirical water-cloud model (WCM)
was developed.

o In the WCM, the canopy is

represented as a cloud. The canopy is
represented by bulk variables such as
leaf area index or vegetation water
content. The cloud density is assumed
to be proportional to the volumetric
water content of the canopy.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Polarimetric SAR Data (Radarsat -2) for Soil Moisture

Estimation
Bharatpur
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Passive Microwave RS for Soil Moisture Estimation

o Passive MW sensors measure the intensity of MW emission from the soil, which is proportional to
the brightness temperature, a product of the surface temperature and emissivity. This observed
emission is related to its moisture content because of the large differences in the dielectric
constant of dry soil & water.
o The brightness temperature, TBp, of a soil and vegetation layer is the sum of three terms: the
canopy attenuated soil emission, the direct vegetation emission, and the vegetation emission
reflected by the soil and attenuated by the canopy:

where Ts and Tc are the physical temperatures (K) of the soil and vegetation canopy, εp is the
surface emissivity, Tc is the vegetation optical depth, and ω is the single scattering albedo. Several
studies found that Tc can be estimated through its relationship to the total vegetation water content
Wc (kg/m2) given by (Jackson and Schmugge, 1991):

where, b is a coefficient that depends on vegetation type (van de Griend and Wigneron,2004), and θ
is the incident angle.

o The spatial variability of the soil texture and temperature, surface roughness, and vegetation, from
one locality to another and even within a single instrument footprint, complicates the application of
this technique
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Approaches of Soil Moisture Estimation
 Statistical approach: This approach is generally based on the regression analysis between
measured brightness temperature and surface soil moisture. For each group of space borne
observations, regression relationships are established between measured brightness temperature
and physical parameters.
 The regression relations are then analyzed in terms of physical variables & parameters, which can
be estimated from ancillary data (Wigneron et al., 2003). Statistical approaches are simple and
efficient, However, these methods are site-specific.

 Forward Model Inversion: In this approach, a radiative transfer model is first selected to
simulate the microwave radiometric measurements on the basis of relevant land surface
parameters, and a method is then developed for inverting the model by minimizing the residual
error between the model-simulated and microwave-measured brightness temperature values.

Most of the studies using semi-empirical & empirical forward models are based on statistical
regression analysis. Usually, the surface soil moisture is statistically related to a combination of
microwave emissivity and vegetation indices, which are used to correct for the soil roughness and
vegetation effects. In the statistical retrieval approaches developed by Jackson et al. (1982) and
Theis et al. (1984), the vegetation indices, such as MPDI and NDVI, have been used in the regression
function to relate the microwave emissivity to soil moisture.
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Passive Microwave RS for Soil Moisture Estimation

Spatial variation
(weekly) of
surface soil
moisture (m3m-3)
estimated using
surface wetness
index during June
(a)–(d ) and
November (e)–(h)
1998 over India
(source : Singh et
al. 2005 )

The SWI at each pixel and week was then converted to surface soil moisture using a linear scaling
between the maximum and air-dry limits of soil at each geographical grid. The volumetric soil moisture
Spatial variation (weekly) of surface soil moisture (m3m-3)
(Mv ) is expressed as a function of SWI
estimated using surface wetness index during June (a)–(d ) and
Mv = Mad +November
[(Mfc – Mad)/ (e)–(h)
(SWImax1998
– SWImin)](SWI
over India– (source
SWImin) : Singh et al. 2005 )

Where Mfc and Mad are air-dry and field capacity level of moisture (m3m-3), SWImax and SWImin
represent the maximum and minimum wetness indices, respectively.
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Optical and Passive Microwave approach for upper layers soil Moisture
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Statistical Downscaling of AMSRE-soil moisture with TVDI

IIRS Participation
Representation of land surface
heterogenity mersoscale model (MM5) by
RS and in-situ measurements in order to
improve numerical weather prediction
University Collaboration :Land surface
characterization by sampling &
measurements
 INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Advantages & Limitations for Soil Moisture Estimation

 Soil moisture retrieval from space-based passive microwave instruments has solid physical
basis, as well as the advantage of all-weather observations and better vegetation penetration
especially at the lower frequencies between 1 and 3 GHz (L band) (Njoku and Li, 1999; Njoku
et al., 2002).

 However, the use of passive microwave measurements for the global estimation is limited for
many reasons. First, the spatial resolution is inherently coarse, which is usually in the range
of 10–20 km.

 Further, the available wavelengths from satellites do not provide adequate soil moisture
sensitivity for all types and levels of vegetation cover. Current algorithms are mainly valid for
weakly vegetated regions and relatively flat surface. Lower frequencies in the L band are
recognized to be of the greatest utility in measuring soil moisture content because they
provide adequate sensitivity to soil moisture for most ranges of vegetation cover (Njoku et al.,
2002).

 However, long wavelengths require large antennas in orbit, which amounts to a challenge for
engineering within operational cost constraints (Zhan et al., 2002; Crosson et al., 2005).
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Generation of AMSR-E Soil Moisture Index

(Chakraborthy et al)
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Summary of Soil moisture retrieval methods
Optical/Themal : Indirect :Ts/NDVI triangle, thermal intertia
Optical indices (NDVI, NDWI, SWIWSI)
Required ancillary met data
High resolution but problems of cloud contamination
Diurnal amplitude of temperature from meteorological
satellite (METEOSAT, MSG series)- better ATI
Passive Microwave
Brightness temperature  emissivity dielectric constant volumetric soil
moisture
limitation : Course resolution (25-50km), less sensitivity of existing sensor in dense vegetation
existing sensor: SSM/I, AMSR-E, TMI future sensor: SMOS, HyDROS & MADRAS (Megha Tropique)
Active Microwave : Direct :
Backscattering coefficient  dielectric constant  volumetric soil moisture
Limitation : good spatial resolution but poor repeat & less swath for large area
monitoring,
sensors : ENVISAT, RADARSAT. RISAT-future
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INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSING, DEHRADUN

Contact Details of the Faculty:

Email- nrpatel@iirs.gov.in
Tel-0135 - 2524138