CGLOPS1 PUM SSM1km-V1 I1.30

Copernicus Global Land Operations – Lot 1
Date Issued: 19.04.2019

Issue: I1.30
Copernicus Global Land Operations

“Vegetation and Energy”
”CGLOPS-1”
Framework Service Contract N° 199494 (JRC)
PRODUCT USER MANUAL
SURFACE SOIL MOISTURE

COLLECTION 1KM
VERSION 1
Issue I1.30
Organization name of lead contractor for this deliverable: TU Wien
Book Captain: Bernhard Bauer-Marschallinger

Contributing Authors: Christoph Paulik
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Dissemination Level
PU Public X
PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services)
RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)
CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services)
Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

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Document Release Sheet
Book captain: Bernhard Bauer-Marschallinger Sign Date 19.04.2019
Approval: Roselyne Lacaze Sign Date 23.04.2019
Endorsement: M. Cherlet Sign Date
Distribution: Public

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Change Record
Issue/Rev Date Page(s) Description of Change Release
28.02.2017 all Initial version D1.00
D1.00 06.04.2017 all Added Validation, Chapter 4 I1.00
I1.00 27.07.2017 all Update after external review I1.10
I1.10 29.11.2018 all Update related to products public release I1.20
16, 17,
I1.20 19.04.2019 Update to model 2015-2018 (V1.1.1) I1.30
22

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Executive Summary .................................................................................................. 10

2 Background of the document ................................................................................... 11
2.1 Scope and Objectives ................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Content of the document ............................................................................................. 11
2.3 Related documents ...................................................................................................... 11

2.3.1 Applicable documents ..................................................................................................................... 11
2.3.2 Input ................................................................................................................................................ 11
2.3.3 External documents ........................................................................................................................ 12
3 Algorithm ................................................................................................................ 13
3.1 Overview ..................................................................................................................... 13
3.2 Soil Moisture Retrieval ................................................................................................ 13
3.2.1 Product Value Flags ......................................................................................................................... 14
3.2.2 Product Masks ................................................................................................................................. 14
3.3 Limitations of the Product............................................................................................ 15
3.4 Differences with previous versions ............................................................................... 16
4 Product Description .................................................................................................. 17

4.1 File Naming ................................................................................................................. 17
4.2 File Format .................................................................................................................. 17

4.3 Product Content .......................................................................................................... 18
4.3.1 Data files.......................................................................................................................................... 18
4.3.2 Quicklook......................................................................................................................................... 25
4.3.3 Tips on netCDF4 files: ...................................................................................................................... 26
4.4 Product Characteristics ................................................................................................ 27

4.4.1 Projection and Grid Information ..................................................................................................... 27
4.4.2 Spatial Extent .................................................................................................................................. 27
4.4.3 Temporal Information ..................................................................................................................... 27
4.5 Data Policies ................................................................................................................ 29

4.6 Contacts ...................................................................................................................... 30
5 Validation ................................................................................................................ 31
5.1 Validation Study 2017 - Europe .................................................................................... 31

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5.2 Evaluation Experiments 2018 - Italy.............................................................................. 32
6 References ............................................................................................................... 33
7 Annex: Review of Users Requirements ...................................................................... 34

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Visual impression of the SSM1km dataset (CEURO extent) from 2018-11-26, as
read from the netCDF4 file and displayed in QGIS. With general encodings of values
and flags. ......................................................................................................................20
Figure 2: SSM1km (CEURO extent) dataset from 2018-11-26, with encodings of values and
flags. Flags are displayed in color for visualization. .......................................................21
Figure 3: Quicklook image (CEURO extent) of the ssm dataset from 2018-11-26. Blue
colours represent wet soil conditions, and brown colours dry conditions. ......................26
Figure 4: Number of processed observations of Sentinel-1A for SSM retrieval over the period
2014/Oct – 2016/Oct. ....................................................................................................28
Figure 5: Sentinel-1A+B revisit and coverage frequency, as specified by ESA on 02/2018. .29

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Algorithm differences between successive SSM1km versions ................................16

Table 2: Explanation in version numbering and recommendations for using efficiently the
products ........................................................................................................................17
Table 3: Geographic coverage .............................................................................................18
Table 4: General value encoding of SSM1km data files........................................................18
Table 5: Overview of flag values and meanings....................................................................19
Table 6: Global attributes of the SSM1km product. ...............................................................22
Table 7: Description of netCDF attributes for the main ssm data variable .............................23
Table 8: Description of netCDF attributes for coordinate variables (latitudes and longitudes)
......................................................................................................................................24
Table 9: Description of netCDF attributes for time coordinate variable .................................24
Table 10: Description of netCDF attributes for the grid mapping variable .............................25
Table 11: Target requirements of GCOS for soil moisture (up to 5cm soil depth) as Essential
Climate Variable (GCOS-154, 2011) .............................................................................35

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LIST OF ACRONYMS
ASAR Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (Envisat satellite)

ASCAT Advanced Scatterometer (MetOp satellites)
ATBD Algorithm Theoretical Base Document
CGLS Copernicus Global Land Service
CSAR C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (sensors onboard Sentinel-1 satellites)
EC European Commission
EODC Earth Observation Data Centre for Water Resources Monitoring
ERS European Radar Satellite
ESA European Space Agency
GCOS Global Climate Observing System
GDAL Geospatial Data Abstraction Library
IW Interferometric Wide Swath mode (Sentinel-1 CSAR observation mode)
netCDF4 Network Common Data Form, Version 4
PUM Product User Manual
QGIS Quantum Geographic Information System (free and open software)
R&D Research and Development
SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar
SSM Surface Soil Moisture
TU Wien Technische Universität Wien
UTC Coordinated Universal Time
VITO Flemish Institute for Technological Research
VR Validation Report
WGS84 World Geodetic System 84 reference system

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1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) is earmarked as a component of the Land
service to operate “a multi-purpose service component” that provides a series of bio-
geophysical products on the status and evolution of land surface at global scale. Production
and delivery of the parameters take place in a timely manner and are complemented by the
constitution of long-term time series.
From 1st January 2013, the Copernicus Global Land Service is providing Essential Climate
Variables like the Leaf Area Index (LAI), the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active
Radiation absorbed by the vegetation (FAPAR), the surface albedo, the Land Surface
Temperature, the soil moisture, the burnt areas, the areas of water bodies, and additional
vegetation indices, are generated every hour, every day or every 10 days on a reliable and
automatic basis from Earth Observation satellite data.
This Product User Manual describes the Copernicus Global Land SSM (Surface Soil
Moisture) product describing soil moisture of the soil’s topmost 5cm on a 1km (1°/112) spatial
sampling. It is derived from microwave radar data observed by the Sentinel-1 SAR satellite
sensors.

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2 BACKGROUND OF THE DOCUMENT
2.1 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

The Product User Manual (PUM) is the primary document that users have to read before
handling the products.
It gives an overview of the product characteristics, in terms of algorithm, technical
characteristics, and main validation results.
2.2 CONTENT OF THE DOCUMENT

This document is structured as follows:
 Chapter 2 recalls the users requirements, and the expected performance
 Chapter 3 summarizes the retrieval methodology
 Chapter 4 describes the technical properties of the product
 Chapter 5 summarizes the results of the quality assessment
2.3 RELATED DOCUMENTS
2.3.1 Applicable documents

AD1: Annex I – Technical Specifications JRC/IPR/2015/H.5/0026/OC to Contract Notice
2015/S 151-277962 of 7th August 2015
AD2: Appendix 1 – Copernicus Global land Component Product and Service Detailed
Technical requirements to Technical Annex to Contract Notice 2015/S 151-277962 of 7th
August 2015
AD3: GIO Copernicus Global Land – Technical User Group – Service Specification and
Product Requirements Proposal – SPB-GIO-3017-TUG-SS-004 – Issue I1.0 – 26 May 2015.
2.3.2 Input
Document ID Descriptor
CGLOPS1_SSD_SSM1km-V1 Service Specifications of the Global Component of
the Copernicus Land Service.
CGLOPS1_ATBD_SSM1km-V1 Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document of the
SSM1km-V1 product
CGLOPS1_VR_SSM1km-V1 Report describing the results of the scientific quality
assessment of the SSM1km-V1 product

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2.3.3 External documents
Document ID Descriptor
ED1 Sentinel-1 User Guide,
https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/user-guides/sentinel-1-sar

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3 ALGORITHM
This section presents a short summary on the SSM1km retrieval algorithm. For more
information, the reader is referred to the CGLOPS1_ATBD_SSM1km-V1document. Also, a
recent peer-reviewed publication (Bauer-Marschallinger et al., 2018) explains in detail the
SSM1km retrieval algorithm, underpinned by its scientific background.
3.1 OVERVIEW
The PUM document provides a detailed description of the Sentinel-1 SSM Version 1 product
(SSM1km-V1, hereafter: SSM1km) characteristics, format, validation activities and
availability. The SSM1km data is retrieved from Sentinel-1 radar backscatter images,
acquired in Interferometric Wade Swath (IW) mode and VV-polarization (see ED1 for details).
This raw satellite data (Level1-data) is jointly provided by the European Space Agency (ESA)
and the European Commission (EC).
The output products are daily images of relative surface soil moisture in percent saturation,
at 1km sampling. The Copernicus SSM1km product in Version 1.1.1 is available for the
European continent per individual location every 3-8 days (January 2015 to October 2016)
and every 1.5-4 days from October 2016 ongoing. A global production is foreseen in a future
release.
3.2 SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVAL

The processing of the Level1-data to SSM data is performed as follows: The Sentinel-1
backscatter value at time , , is terrain-geo-corrected and radiometrically calibrated. The
TU-Wien-Change-Detection model is used to derive soil moisture directly from backscatter
observations. This model was originally developed for the ERS scatterometer by Wagner et
al., 1998, and adapted by Hornacek et al., 2012 to the specific measurement configuration of
Sentinel-1. In this model, long-term backscatter measurements are used to model dry and
wet soil conditions from the radar backscatter signal. Further, the incidence angle
dependency of the backscatter is modelled by the linear slope parameter , which allows a
normalization to a common reference observation angle ( °).
The relative surface soil moisture estimates range between 0% and 100% and are
derived by linearly scaling the angle-normalized backscatter between the
lowest/highest backscatter values at the individual location ( ). These
backscatter values correspond to the driest/wettest soil conditions. The difference between
those values is called the soil moisture sensitivity .
These parameters necessary for the production (dry-reference , wet-reference

, and slope ) are obtained from the Sentinel-1 backscatter long-term time series of
the individual location. The relative surface soil moisture is estimated by:

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The soil moisture in the SSM1km represents degree of saturation , but can be
translated from relative (%) to absolute volumetric units (in m³/m³), using porosity
information (also in m³/m³):
The SSM1km value range is from 0% to 100% relative soil moisture, which is encoded in the
files as datatype “byte” with the integer values 0-200, using the scale factor of 0.5. Please
see Figure 1 for illustration, and Table 4 listing the encoding.
3.2.1 Product Value Flags

The Sentinel-1 SSM1km algorithm depends on statistically derived reference values for dry
and wet soil at each pixel. In most cases, Sentinel-1 CSAR radar observations lie between
these two extreme values and the observations can be converted meaningfully to soil
moisture values from 0% to 100% relative soil moisture.
However, in cases of one of the following, the SSM retrieval is ill posed:
 extreme dry conditions,
 frozen soil,
 snow covered soil,
 floodings.
Therefore, all SSM retrievals exceeding the local pixel’s dry- and wet-reference are replaced
by the flags “ExceedingMin” (encoded as value=241) and “ExceedingMax” (encoded as
value=242), respectively. Please see Figure 2 for illustration, and Table 4 listing the
encoding.
3.2.2 Product Masks

The Sentinel-1 SSM1km algorithm does not apply, or rather does not make sense, for all
surfaces. It is straightforward to mask out water surfaces to remove misleading values over
the sea, lakes and rivers. This is facilitated with the Sentinel-1 CSAR backscatter
parameters.
A water mask, generated from Sentinel-1 CSAR time series, is directly applied to the product
dataset, as all water pixels are set to the flag value “WaterMask” (encoded as value =251).
The sensitivity S40 is an important measure for the accuracy and reliability of the S-1 SSM
algorithm. Therefore, a sensitivity mask is generated, masking out pixels with low
sensitivity. This yields a mask that detects urban areas, rivers, and dense forests. This mask
is directly applied to the product dataset, setting all pixels with low sensitivity to the flag value
“SensitivityMask” (encoded as value =252).

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Highly undulated terrains challenges SAR processing and cause errors in the backscatter
values. Areas with high elevation slope are identified by the slope mask. It indicates pixels
with an elevation slope higher than 30% (equivalent to a gradient of 17°). This mask is
directly applied to the product dataset, setting all pixels with extreme terrain slope to the flag
value “SlopeMask” (encoded as value =253). Please see Figure 2 for illustration, and Table
4 listing the encoding.
3.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE PRODUCT

The current algorithm to retrieve SSM from Sentinel-1 CSAR does not account for vegetation
dynamics. This can lead to biases in the soil moisture, during the vegetation full development
period especially over areas with high density (e.g. forests).
Soil moisture cannot be retrieved over deserts and high vegetation areas like tropical forests.
Although a terrain correction is performed, it does not completely remove the influence of
topography. Especially over high mountain ranges this limitation comes into effect and thus
the SlopeMask is applied.
In addition, no reliable soil moisture measurements can be done during frozen or snow
covered conditions. In this first version, no specific mask or flag is in place for these
conditions (e.g. frozen soil, snow cover, open water). The “ExceedingMin” value flag give
some indication on frozen/snow soil conditions, but it is left to the user to judge whether the
SSM1km data is meaningful or not during the cold period in his region of interest. Users of
SSM1km are advised to use the best auxiliary data available to improve the flagging of snow,
frozen soil and (temporary) standing water.
However, under the following conditions a SSM retrieval from Sentinel-1 should be most
suited:
 low to moderate vegetation regimes
 unfrozen and no snow
 low to moderate topographic variations
Linear artefacts can be seen in the individual SSM images. Although a calibration is
performed by ESA on the three parallel sub-swaths, a number of orbits are still affected by
scalloping (a bias in the backscatter per sub-swath). Although visually un-appealing to the
user, the error is of low magnitude and has only little effect on the temporal signal.
Lastly, some images are affected by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) stemming from
ground based C-band transmitting systems. Unfortunately, the RFI cannot be removed by
ESA or by the SSM1km algorithm at the moment.
A more detailed discussion of the limitations can be found in the
CGLOPS1_ATBD_SSM1km-V1 document and in Bauer-Marschallinger et al. (2018).

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3.4 DIFFERENCES WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS

The differences between successive versions of the SSM 1km product are explained in the
table below.
Table 1: Algorithm differences between successive SSM1km versions
Versions Algorithm Differences
1.0 Initial version with model reference period 2015-2017

1.1 Model reference period 2015-2018

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4 PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
4.1 FILE NAMING

The Surface Soil Moisture 1km version 1 products follow the following naming standard:
c_gls_SSM1km_<YYYYMMDDHHMM>_CEURO_S1CSAR_<VX.Y.Z>.nc
where
 <YYYYMMDDHHMM> gives the temporal location of the file. YYYY, MM, DD, HH,
and MM denote the year, the month, the day, the hour, and the minutes, respectively.
Note that HHMM is always 0000 (0h UTC).
 <AREA> gives the geographic coverage of the file. In this first version, <AREA> is
CEURO, denoting continental Europe (Table 3).
 <VX.Y.Z> shows the processing line version used to generate these SSM products.
The version denoted as M.m.r (e.g. 1.1.1), with ‘M’ representing the major version
(e.g. V1), ‘m’ the minor version (starting from 0) and ‘r’ the production run number
(starting from 1) (Table 2)
Table 2: Explanation in version numbering and recommendations for using efficiently the
products
Versions Differences Recommendations
Do not mix various major versions in the

Major Significant change to the algorithm. same applications, unless it is otherwise
stated.
Minor Can be mixed in the same applications, but

Minor changes in the algorithm
require attention or modest modifications
Run Fixes to bugs and minor issues. Later

Consider it as a drop-in replacement
run automatically replaces former
4.2 FILE FORMAT

The SSM products are delivered as a set of files:
 An internally compressed, multiband Network Common Data Form version 4
(netCDF4) with metadata attributes compliant with version 1.6 of the Climate &
Forecast conventions (CF V1.6) containing the following full-resolution bands:
o ssm: surface soil moisture
o ssm_noise: surface soil moisture noise

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 An xml file containing the metadata conforms to INSPIRE2.1.

 A quicklook in a coloured geo-tiff format. The quicklook sub-sampled to 25% in both
directions from the ssm layer.
For a more user-friendly view of the XML contents, please download the XSL transformation
file from https://land.copernicus.eu/global/sites/cgls.vito.be/files/xml/c_gls_ProductSet.xsl.
Then place the XSL file in the same folder as the XML file and open the XML file in your
favourite web browser
Each product covers the geographic area indicated by the bounding box coordinates in the
following table.
Table 3: Geographic coverage
Region Coordinates
Longitude: 11°W to 50°E

CEURO / continental Europe
Latitude: 72°N to 35°N
4.3 PRODUCT CONTENT
4.3.1 Data files

The digital values are not stored in its physical dimension (e.g. relative soil moisture in
percent), but they are encoded into unsigned byte data type. The physical values (PhyVal)
are retrieved from the Digital Numbers (DN) through the following equation, with
scale_factor, add_offset given in Table 4.
PhyVal = DN * Scale_factor + add_offset

As an example, a digital ssm value of 50 indicates a relative surface soil moisture of 25%.
Table 4: General value encoding of SSM1km data files.
Min physical Max physical Max digital Scale No-Data

Variable Type Add_offset Unit
value value (DN) value Factor Value
ssm Unsigned byte 0 100 200 0.5 0 % 255
ssm_noise Unsigned byte 0 100 200 0.5 0 % 255
The digital value 255 is used to indicate where the SSM is not retrieved (no-data). Flagged
pixels, for which the above encoding (scaling) doesn’t apply, are summarized in Table 5.

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Table 5: Overview of flag values and meanings
Flag value Name Description

241 ExceedingMin Exceeding local pixel’s dry extreme
242 ExceedingMax Exceeding local pixel’s wet extreme
251 WaterMask Masked water surface
252 SensitivityMask Masked for low sensitivity S40
253 SlopeMask Masked for extreme slope (topography)
An example SSM1km image over Europe (with added country borders) is shown in Figure 1.
The image includes all Sentinel-1 observations from the day 2018-11-26, consisting of six
individual satellite overpasses on that day.
The same dataset is displayed in Figure 2 with masks and flags in colours, highlighting the
encoding of the values and flags (water mask, slope mask, etc.).

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Figure 1: Visual impression of the SSM1km dataset (CEURO extent) from 2018-11-26, as read
from the netCDF4 file and displayed in QGIS. With general encodings of values and flags.

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Figure 2: SSM1km (CEURO extent) dataset from 2018-11-26, with encodings of values and
flags. Flags are displayed in color for visualization.
The netCDF files contain a number of metadata attributes

 on the file-level (Table 6);
 on the level of the data variable (Table 7);
 at the level of the coordinate variables for latitude (‘lat’) and longitude (‘lon’) (Table 8);
 at the level of the coordinate variable for time dimension (‘time’), holding one value for
the reference or nominal date (Table 9);
 at the level of the grid mapping (spatial reference system) variable (‘crs’) (see Table
10)

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Table 6: Global attributes of the SSM1km product.
Attribute name Description Example

Conventions Version of the CF-Conventions used CF-1.6
archive_facility Institution that archives the product VITO
Copyright notice, to be used when
copyright referring to the data source of this Copernicus Service information 2019
product in publications
geospatial_lat_max Minimum Latitude +72
geospatial_lat_min Maximum Latitude +35
geospatial_lon_max Minimum Longitude +50
geospatial_lon_min Maximum Longitude -11
2019-04-08 -- Near Real Time
history Describes the lineage
Production
urn:cgls:global:ssm_v1_1km:SSM1km
identifier Unique identifier for the product _201904010000_CEURO_S1CSAR_
V1.1.1
institution Institution that produced the product TU Wien
model_parameter_baseline Reference years for the SSM model 2015 - 2018
long_name Extended product name Surface Soil Moisture
orbit_type Orbit type of the orbiting platform(s) LEO
Identifier of the product collection for
parent_identifier the product in Copernicus Global urn:cgls:global:ssm_v1_1km
Land Service metadata catalogue
Name(s) of the orbiting platform(s)
platform used. One of “Sentinel-1A”, “Sentinel- Sentinel-1 A+B
1B” and “Sentinel-1 A+B”
pixel_size Size of a single pixel (in square) 0.0089285714 degrees
processing_level Product processing level L2
Processing mode used when
generating the product. One of Near-
processing_mode Near Real Time
Real Time, Consolidated, Offline or
Reprocessing
product_version Version of the product (VM.m.r) V1.1.1
Published references that describe
https://land.copernicus.eu/global/prod
references the data or methods used to produce
ucts/ssm
it.
Name of the geographic region
region_name CEURO
covered
sensor Name(s) of the sensor(s) used CSAR
The method of production of the
source Derived from EO radar observations
original data
End date and time of the temporal
time_coverage_end 2019-04-01T23:59:59Z
coverage of the input data
Start date and time of the temporal
time_coverage_start 2019-04-01T00:00:00Z
coverage of the input data.
Daily Surface Soil Moisture 1km:
title A description of the contents of the file
CEURO 2019-04-01T00:00:00Z

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Table 7: Description of netCDF attributes for the main ssm data variable
Attribute Description Examples values

CLASS Dataset type DATA
Single value used to represent missing or undefined
_FillValue data and to pre-fill memory space in case a non- 255
written part of data is read back.
Hint to processing software that an unsigned integer
_Unsigned true
data type is used
coordinates References the coordinate variables time lat lon
Values imprinted in the dataset, indicating flags and

flag_values masks of the measurement, as defined by 241, 242, 251, 252, 253
flag_meanings
ExceedingMin,
ExceedingMax,
flag_meanings Meanings of the corresponding item of flag_values WaterMask,
SensitivityMask,
SlopeMask
grid_mapping Reference to the grid mapping variable crs
A descriptive name that indicates a variable’s
long_name Surface Soil Moisture
content. This name is not standardized.
Single value used to represent missing or undefined
missing_value data, for applications following older versions of the 255
standards.
Multiplication factor for the variable’s contents that
scale_factor must be applied in order to obtain the physical 0.5
values.
Units of the variable’s content, conforming to
units %
Unidata’sudunits library.
Smallest and largest values for the variable.
valid_range Missing data is to be represented by one or several 0, 200
values outside of this range.

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Table 8: Description of netCDF attributes for coordinate variables (latitudes and longitudes)
Attribute Description Example

CLASS Dataset type DIMENSION_SCALE
A standardized name that references a description
of a variable’s content in CF-Convention’s standard
standard_name longitude
names table. Note that each standard_name has
corresponding unit (from Unidata’s udunits).
long_name content. This name is not standardized. Used when longitude
a standard name is not available (FDOB layers).
Units of a the variable’s content, taken from
units degrees_east
Unidata’s udunits library.
Identifies latitude, longitude, vertical, or
axis X
time axes.
valid_range Smallest and largest valid values for the variable. -11, 50
Table 9: Description of netCDF attributes for time coordinate variable

CLASS Dataset type DIMENSION_SCALE
A standardized name that references a description
of a variable’s content in CF-Convention’s standard
standard_name time
names table. Note that each standard_name has
corresponding unit (from Unidata’s udunits).
long_name content. This name is not standardized. Required time
when a standard name is not available.
Units of a the variable’s content, taken from days since
units
Unidata’s udunits library. 1970-01-01 12:00:00
Identifies latitude, longitude, vertical, or
axis T
time axes.
Specific calendar assigned to the time variable,
calendar standard
taken from the Unidata’s udunits library.

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Table 10: Description of netCDF attributes for the grid mapping variable

Six coefficients for the affine transformation from
-11 0.008928571428571428 0
GeoTransform pixel/line space to coordinate space, as defined
72 0 -0.008928571428571428
in GDAL’s GeoTransform
grid_mapping_name Name used to identify the grid mapping latitude_longitude
Used to specify the inverse flattening (1/f) of the

ellipsoidal figure associated with the geodetic
inverse_flattening 298.257223563
datum and used to approximate the shape of the
Earth
long_name CRS definition
content.
Specifies the longitude, with respect to
longitude_of_prime_me
Greenwich, of the prime meridian associated 0.0
ridian
with the geodetic datum
Specifies the length, in metres, of the semi-major
axis of the ellipsoidal figure associated with the
semi_major_axis 6378137.0
geodetic datum and used to approximate the
shape of the Earth
GEOGCS["WGS
Spatial reference system in OGC’s Well-Known
spatial_ref 84",DATUM["WGS_1984",…
Text (WKT) format
AUTHORITY["EPSG","4326"]]
4.3.2 Quicklook
The quicklook is a mean of giving a first impression of the dataset (e.g. when browsing) and
should not be used in analysis.
The quicklook file is a coloured GeoTIFF image showing soil moisture, sub-sampled to 25%
in both directions. Its filename follows a similar naming scheme as the main netCDF4 data
file:
c_gls_SSM1km_QL_<YYYYMMDDHHMM>_<AREA>_S1CSAR_<VX.Y.Z>.tiff
Its colour coding illustrates wet and dry conditions and neglects flags and masks. An
example quicklook and its colour coding are shown in
Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Quicklook image (CEURO extent) of the ssm dataset from 2018-11-26. Blue colours
represent wet soil conditions, and brown colours dry conditions.
4.3.3 Tips on netCDF4 files:

1. Download and install netCDF4 library from Unidata.
The library comes with useful tools to discover the organization and contents of the netCDF4
files. For example, you can use the “ncdump” line command to view the hierarchical
organization of the files (using -h option for header information only, as below):
ncdump -h c_gls_SSM1km_201411080000_CEURO_S1CSAR_V1.1.1.nc
2. Download a viewer called Panoply from the NASA panoply website.

This tool is more user friendly oriented than the command-line based tools.
3. Another option is to use the GDAL library from http://www.gdal.org/.

Issue: I1.30
This library is often bundled with open source geospatial software, such as QGIS, and comes
with useful tools that could be used to inspect and convert the contents of the netCDF4 files
into another format. For example, you can use the ‘gdalinfo’ tool to obtain a description of the
ssm variable (data layer) in the netCDF4 file
gdalinfo NETCDF:c_gls_SSM1km_201411080000_CEURO_S1CSAR_V1.1.1.nc:ssm
In QGIS, the same command is available from menu Raster – Miscellaneous – Information.
4.4 PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS
4.4.1 Projection and Grid Information

The product is displayed in a regular latitude/longitude grid (plate carrée) with the ellipsoid
WGS 1984 (Terrestrial radius=6378km). The resolution of the grid is 1°/112 or approximately
1km at equator.
The CEURO or continental Europe window hence includes 6832 columns by 4144 rows.
4.4.2 Spatial Extent

The spatial extent of the product is specified in Table 3.
This first version of the product holds data only for the European continent on grounds of the
Sentinel-1 mission’s observation scenario (see also Figure 4 below). For areas outside
Europe, not enough observations are currently available to generate stable SSM retrieval
parameters.
4.4.3 Temporal Information

The SSM1km product is a daily composite, available from Jan 2015 onwards and updated
daily with new data from the Sentinel-1A and -1B satellites acquired between 00:00UTC
23:59 UTC. The part “YYYYMMDDHHMM” of the product file name gives the date of the
representative or nominal day at 00:00UTC, to be considered in analysis and time series
construction.
Sentinel-1A and -1B have a fixed observation pattern bound to the satellite’s orbit.
Consequently, Sentinel-1 senses the Earth’s surface differently often and the SSM1km data
density is not uniform. Figure 4 shows the number of observations (revisit) from Sentinel-1A
that was processed to SSM until October 2016. Areas with more observations have a higher
temporal observation frequency. The inclusion of Sentinel-1B does not alter this pattern.

Issue: I1.30
Figure 4: Number of processed observations of Sentinel-1A for SSM retrieval over the period
2014/Oct – 2016/Oct.
From the observation scenario, the satellite sensor does not capture the whole area in 24h.
Consequently, portions of the daily SSM1km file are filled with the no-data-value (255). The
temporal frequency of valid SSM values depends on the individual location, and on the
period:
 2015 - Oct 2016: per location one measurement each 3-8 days over Europe.
 Oct 2016 – ongoing: per location one measurement each 1.5-4 days over
Europe.
Figure 5 shows the revisit and coverage frequency of the Sentinel-1 mission when operating
with two satellites, as specified by ESA. With the inclusion the Sentinel-1B data starting in
October 2016, the coverage frequency over Europe reduces effectively to 1.5-4 days,
depending on the individual location in relation to the non-uniform coverage pattern (Figure
4).

Issue: I1.30
Figure 5: Sentinel-1A+B revisit and coverage frequency, as specified by ESA on 02/2018.
There are ascending and descending satellite overpasses. Especially in areas with high
latitude, more than one overpass per 24h is possible. Here, simply the latest SSM estimate
per day is selected, which is commonly the afternoon overpass around 18h local time.
4.5 DATA POLICIES

EU law1 grants free and open access to Copernicus Sentinel Data and Service Information,
which includes Global Land Service products, for the purpose of the following use in so far as
it is lawful:
a) reproduction;
b) distribution;
c) communication to the public;
d) adaptation, modification and combination with other data and information;
e) any combination of points (a) to (d).
EU law allows for specific limitations of access and use in the rare cases of security
concerns, protection of third party rights or risk of service disruption.
1
European Commission, Regulation (EU) No 377/2014 and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No
1159/2013.
Issue: I1.30
By using Service Information the user acknowledges that these conditions are
applicable to him/her and that the user renounces to any claims for damages against
the European Union and the providers of the said Data and Information. The scope of
this waiver encompasses any dispute, including contracts and torts claims that might
be filed in court, in arbitration or in any other form of dispute settlement.
Where the user communicates to the public on or distributes the original SSM1km products,
he/she is obliged to refer to the data source with (at least) the following statement (included
as the copyright attribute of the netCDF4 file):
Copernicus Service information [Year]
With [Year]: year of publication
Where the user has adapted or modified the products, the statement should be:
Contains modified Copernicus Service information [Year]
For complete acknowledgement and credits, the following statement can be used:
“The product was generated by the Global component of the Land Service of Copernicus, the
Earth Observation programme of the European Commission. The research leading to the
current version of the product has received funding from various European Commission
Research and Technical Development programs. This product has been generated from
Sentinel-1 data distributed by ESA.”
The user accepts to inform Copernicus about the outcome of the use of the above-mentioned
products and to send a copy of any publications that use these products to the scientific &
technical support contact specified in the next section.
4.6 CONTACTS
The SSM1km products are available through the Copernicus Global Land Service website at
the address: https://land.copernicus.eu/global/products/ssm
Accountable Contact: European Commission, Directorate-General Joint Research Centre,
Italy
Email address: copernicuslandproducts@jrc.ec.europa.eu
Scientific & Technical support contact:
https://land.copernicus.eu/global/contactpage.

Issue: I1.30
5 VALIDATION
5.1 VALIDATION STUDY 2017 - EUROPE

A validation study for the SSM1km product over Europe was carried out in April 2017 and
reported in CGLOPS1_VR_SSM1km-V1. The satellite product describing in daily global
images the surface soil moisture (in relative units (%)) was compare against in-situ
measurements (in absolute values (m³/m³)) from field station networks located at six
European sites in Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Romania and Spain, totalling 127
stations.
The quality of the SSM1km was assessed in the temporal and in the spatial domain,
meaning that the quality of the temporal signal and the spatial signal was analyzed
individually. In addition, the masks for the SSM1km were investigated in their ability to
identify locations where SSM1km retrieval algorithm is not applicable.
The temporal analyses presented poor to medium performances of the product when
compared against in-situ data, albeit the quality of the in-situ data itself was not questioned.
While there is acceptable agreement with stations in Austria, Germany, Romania and
Finland, little agreement was found with data from Spain and France. Due to the temporal
frequency of the SSM1km, which that is eminently inferior to the one of the in-situ
observations, the temporal signal is inevitably of lower quality. Many events, leading to peaks
in the in-situ data, are missed by the satellite product. This is considered as the most
impacting drawback of the SSM1km. However, the overall level and long-term development
of soil moisture are mostly captured. Putting the present study in relation to similar validation
campaigns, the obtained correlation results undercut only little the results from other
remotely sensed soil moisture data
The spatial analyses show in contrast a much higher agreement, with almost coincident soil
moisture patterns in the data from in-situ and SSM1km in the Spain-, Finland- and France-
validation sites. Daily soil moisture maps agree very well, meaning that in the network area,
the relative soil moisture differences at a time are well captured by the satellite data. This is
not unexpected, as this is in accordance with high quality of the Sentinel-1 image data due to
its spatial detail. The product shows higher potential to describe the variation of soil moisture
in space than other remotely sensed datasets.
The SSM Water Mask and the SSM Sensitivity Mask show good results when compared
against land cover data. The Sensitivity Mask performs well and manages to identify city
areas, but leaves some room for improvement. The SSM Water Mask does not miss any
water pixel, practically, but only overestimates the water area slightly, which is rather a
safeguard to the SSM product.
Overall, the SSM1km meets the expectations as it achieves to reflect the spatial dynamics of
soil moisture at the kilometric scale. On that matter, the product shows more potential than
comparable products. However, the performance overt time against time series data from in-

Issue: I1.30
situ point measurements is rather weak and leaves room for improvement. When using the
average RMSD values, the goal of 0.04 m³/m³ from the GCOS requirements (Table 11) is
reached only at two out of six validation sites. As expected, the product does not deliver
information that can be used reliably to determine the absolute soil moisture at the point
scale. A true validation of the SSM1km would demand an extensive reference dataset at the
kilometric scale, which was not available at the time of this study. The goal for the product’s
stability cannot be validated in Version 1, as one year of data is not sufficient.
However, the outlook is promising, as the parameter database for the Sentinel-1 SSM
retrieval is growing with time since mission start and thus is ever-improving. The longer the
available time series, the more robust are the parameters for soil moisture estimation.
Furthermore, a potential inclusion of Sentinel-1B data will improve the observation frequency
by the factor two and promises a much higher dynamic in the temporal signal. Consequently,
peaks and lows of the soil moisture variation would be captured more successfully, yet
addressing the product’s most impacting shortcoming.
5.2 EVALUATION EXPERIMENTS 2018 - ITALY

A recent peer-reviewed publication (Bauer-Marschallinger et al., 2018) explains first in detail
the SSM1km retrieval algorithm and then investigates its performance over Italy and its
neighbours. Over that area, which comprises challenging terrains and heterogeneous land
cover, a consistent set of model parameters and product masks was generated, unperturbed
by coverage discontinuities. An evaluation of therefrom generated SSM1km data, involving
in-situ measurements and a 1km Soil Water Balance Model (SWBM) over Umbria, yielded
high agreement over plains and agricultural areas, with low agreement over forests and
strong topography. These results are in alignment with the previous study over Europe in
2017 [CGLOPS1_VR_SSM1km-V1]. Also here, positive biases during the growing season
were detected. However, excellent capability to capture small-scale soil moisture changes as
from rainfall or irrigation is evident from this evaluation.

Issue: I1.30
6 REFERENCES
Bauer-Marschallinger, B., Freeman, V., Cao, S., Paulik, C., Schaufler, S., Stachl, T.,
Modanesi, S., Massari, C., Ciabatta, L., Brocca, L. and Wagner, W., 2018. Toward
Global Soil Moisture Monitoring With Sentinel-1: Harnessing Assets and Overcoming
Obstacles. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, (99), pp.1-20.
Hornáček, M., Wagner, W., Sabel, D., Truong, H.-L., Snoeij, P., Hahmann, T., Diedrich, E.,
Doubková, M., 2012. Potential for high resolution systematic global surface soil
moisture retrieval via change detection using Sentinel-1. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs.
Remote Sens. IEEE J. Of 5, 1303–1311.
Wagner, W., 1998. Soil moisture retrieval from ERS scatterometer data. European
Commission, Joint Research Centre, Space Applications Institute.

Issue: I1.30
7 ANNEX: REVIEW OF USERS REQUIREMENTS

According to the applicable documents [AD2] and [AD3], the user’s requirements relevant for
S1-SSM are:
 Definition:
o Moisture content in the top 5 cm of the soil
 Geometric properties:
o Pixel size of output data shall be defined on a per-product basis so as to
facilitate the multi-parameter analysis and exploitation.
o The baseline datasets pixel size shall be provided, depending on the final
product, at resolutions of 100m and/or 300m and/or 1km.
o The target baseline location accuracy shall be 1/3 of the at-nadir
instantaneous field of view.
o Pixel co-ordinates shall be given for centre of pixel.
 Geographical coverage:
o geographic projection: lat long
o geodetical datum: WGS84
o pixel size: 1/112° - accuracy: min 10 digits
o coordinate position: pixel centre
o global window coordinates:
 Upper Left: 180°W-75°N
 Bottom Right: 180°E, 56°S
 Accuracy requirements:
o Baseline: wherever applicable the bio-geophysical parameters should meet
the internationally agreed accuracy standards laid down in document
“Systematic Observation Requirements for Satellite-Based Products for
Climate”. Supplemental details to the satellite based component of the
“Implementation Plan for the Global Observing System for Climate in Support
of the UNFCCC. GCOS-#154, 2011”. (Table 11)
o Target: considering data usage by that part of the user community focused on
operational monitoring at (sub-) national scale, accuracy standards may apply
not on averages at global scale, but at a finer geographic resolution and in any
event at least at biome level.

Issue: I1.30
Table 11: Target requirements of GCOS for soil moisture (up to 5cm soil depth) as Essential
Climate Variable (GCOS-154, 2011)
Variable Horizontal Temporal Accuracy Stability

Resolution resolution
3 3 3 3
Volumetric soil moisture 50 km Daily 0.04 m /m 0.01 m /m /year
GCOS notes that the targets above “are set as an accuracy of about 10 per cent of saturated
content and stability of about 2 per cent of saturated content. These values are judged
adequate for regional impact and adaptation studies and verification and development of
climate models. It is considered premature to consider global scale changes.” It adds that
“stating a general accuracy requirement is difficult for this type of observation, as this
depends not only on soil type but also on soil moisture content itself. The stated numbers
thus should be viewed with some caution”.


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Copernicus Global Land Operations – Lot 1

Date Issued: 19.04.2019

Copernicus Global Land Operations

PRODUCT USER MANUAL

SURFACE SOIL MOISTURE

Organization name of lead contractor for this deliverable: TU Wien

Book Captain: Bernhard Bauer-Marschallinger

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

Document Release Sheet

Book captain: Bernhard Bauer-Marschallinger Sign Date 19.04.2019

Approval: Roselyne Lacaze Sign Date 23.04.2019

Endorsement: M. Cherlet Sign Date

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

Issue/Rev Date Page(s) Description of Change Release

28.02.2017 all Initial version D1.00

D1.00 06.04.2017 all Added Validation, Chapter 4 I1.00

I1.00 27.07.2017 all Update after external review I1.10

I1.10 29.11.2018 all Update related to products public release I1.20

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

1 Executive Summary .................................................................................................. 10

2.2 Content of the document ............................................................................................. 11

2.3 Related documents ...................................................................................................... 11

3.3 Limitations of the Product............................................................................................ 15

3.4 Differences with previous versions ............................................................................... 16

4 Product Description .................................................................................................. 17

4.2 File Format .................................................................................................................. 17

4.4 Product Characteristics ................................................................................................ 27

4.5 Data Policies ................................................................................................................ 29

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

5.2 Evaluation Experiments 2018 - Italy.............................................................................. 32

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

Table 1: Algorithm differences between successive SSM1km versions ................................16

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

ASAR Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (Envisat satellite)

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

2 BACKGROUND OF THE DOCUMENT

2.1 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

2.2 CONTENT OF THE DOCUMENT

2.3 RELATED DOCUMENTS

2.3.1 Applicable documents

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

2.3.3 External documents

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

3.2 SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVAL

These parameters necessary for the production (dry-reference , wet-reference

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

3.2.1 Product Value Flags

3.2.2 Product Masks

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

3.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE PRODUCT

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

3.4 DIFFERENCES WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS

Versions Algorithm Differences

1.0 Initial version with model reference period 2015-2017

Document-No. CGLOPS1_PUM_SSM1km-V1 © C-GLOPS Lot1 consortium

4.1 FILE NAMING

Versions Differences Recommendations

Do not mix various major versions in the

Minor Can be mixed in the same applications, but

Run Fixes to bugs and minor issues. Later

4.2 FILE FORMAT