Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Earth-Science Reviews
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/earscirev

Soil moisture retrieval from remote sensing measurements: Current

knowledge and directions for the future
Zhao-Liang Li a, b, Pei Leng a, *, Chenghu Zhou b, Kun-Shan Chen c, Fang-Cheng Zhou d,
Guo-Fei Shang e
a
Key Laboratory of Agricultural Remote Sensing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs/Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy
of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
c
College of Geomatics and Geoinformation, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 530001, China
d
National Satellite Meteorological Center, Beijing 100081, China
e
School of Land Science and Space Planning, Hebei GEO University, Shijiazhuang 050031, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Soil moisture (SM) is an essential parameter for understanding the interactions and feedbacks between the at­
Soil moisture mosphere and the Earth’s surface through energy and water cycles. Knowledge of the spatiotemporal distribution
Remote sensing of land surface SM has long been a challenge in the remote sensing community. Over the past 50 years, elec­
Optical/thermal
tromagnetic spectra, from the optical/thermal to the microwave regions, have been intensively investigated for
Microwave
Retrieval methods
SM retrieval, providing a number of algorithms, models and products that are available for actual applications
nowadays. However, certain issues with respect to retrieval accuracy, spatiotemporal resolution, and data
consistency exist and remain unsolved between the state-of-the-art of SM retrieval and readily-used SM datasets
for various domains at field, regional/watershed or global scales. In particular, several new theories and algo­
rithms for SM retrieval proposed in recent years have not been well documented in previous articles. Therefore, a
critical review of the established and emerging SM retrieval methods with respect to their advantages and dis­
advantages is necessary. In present study, future directions for each method are highlighted to address the sci­
entific challenges of SM retrieval in the new era of rapid data expansion.

1. Introduction
In general, the soil moisture (SM) content refers to the moisture
contained in the unsaturated soil zone with a volumetric or gravimetric
basis (Seneviratne et al., 2010; AI-Yaari et al., 2014). Although SM takes
up only a small percentage (~0.05%) of the total amount of fresh water
on Earth (Shiklomanov, 1993), it is a key variable in the water cycle and
energy budget between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. In the
global water cycle, SM controls most of the physical processes on Earth,
including rainfall infiltration and terrestrial evapotranspiration

Abbreviations: AIEM, Advanced Integral Equation Model; AMSR2, Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer2; AMSR-E, Advanced Microwave Scanning
Radiometer-Earth Observing System; ASCAT, Advanced SCATterometer; ATI, Apparent Thermal Inertia; AVHRR, Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer; CCI,
Climate Change Initiative; DSMW, Digital Soil Map of the World; FVC, Fractional Vegetation Cover; HWSD, Harmonized World Soil Database; IEM, Integral Equation
Model; ISRIC, International Soil Reference and Information Centre; LAI, Leaf Area Index; L-MEB, L-band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere; LST, Land Surface
Temperature; MIMICS, Michigan Microwave Canopy Scattering Model; MODIS, MOderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer; MPDI, Modified Perpendicular
Drought Index; NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; NDWI, Normalized Difference Water Index; NSSR, Net Surface Shortwave Radiation; OPTRAM,
OPtical TRApezoid Model; PDI, Perpendicular Drought Index; RFI, Radio Frequency Interference; RMSE, Root Mean Square Error; RTE, Radiative Transfer Equation;
SAR, Synthetic Aperture Radar; SEE, Soil Evaporative Efficiency; SM, Soil Moisture; SMAP, Soil Moisture Active Passive; SMOS, Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity;
SMSI, Soil Moisture Saturation Index; SSM, Surface Soil Moisture; STR, Shortwave-infrared Transformed Reflectance; SWI, Soil Water Index; TI, Thermal Inertia; TIR,
Thermal-infrared; TN, LST rising rate normalized by the difference in the NSSR during the mid-morning; VI, Vegetation Index; VIS/NIR, Visible/Near-infrared; VOD,
Vegetation Optical Depth; VWC, Vegetation Water Content.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lengpei@caas.cn (P. Leng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103673
Received 2 December 2020; Received in revised form 18 March 2021; Accepted 8 May 2021
Available online 11 May 2021
0012-8252/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z.-L. Li et al.
(Anderson et al., 2009; Koster et al., 2004; Tuttle and Salvucci, 2016;
Dorigo et al., 2017; Jiang et al., 2019). Furthermore, SM has long been
recognized as a significant variable in the surface energy budget due to
its capacity to decompose surface available energy into sensible and
latent heat flux through evaporation and transpiration processes (Ver­
eecken et al., 2015). In addition, SM has been recognized as one of the
essential climate variables for its strong influence on the global climate
and weather system (Seneviratne et al., 2010). Specifically, accurate SM
information is one of the most significant parameters in agricultural
applications such as irrigation scheduling, drought monitoring and yield
predication, which can promote water-saving agriculture and ensure
food security, especially over arid and semi-arid regions (Martínez-
Fernández et al., 2016; Champagne et al., 2019; Domínguez-Niño et al.,
2020). Hence, knowledge of SM at various spatiotemporal scales is of
significant importance to both natural environments and human
activities.
Traditionally, SM has been monitored and investigated using
ground-based point measurements or interpolated lines or grids. The
most popular form at present is using the network to obtain multiple in-
situ SM profiles with the dielectric technique-based SM sensors. The
principle of measuring SM behind such observations is that a significant
dielectric contrast exists between liquid water (~80) and dry soil (~4)
(Schmugge et al., 1974). Several critical review articles on almost all the
currently available SM measurement techniques with respect to their
merits and demerits were recently published (Susha et al., 2014;
Babaeian et al., 2019; Bogena et al., 2015; Ochsner et al., 2013), and
although the traditional techniques possess relatively high accuracy,
point-based measurements usually have limited spatial representative­
ness (a maximum of a few square meters) (Petropoulos et al., 2013;
Babaeian et al., 2019). In general, SM is most likely to reveal high
spatiotemporal variations, especially over heterogeneous regions where
topography, soil texture, vegetation cover, climate pattern and other
relevant factors have strong effects on the spatiotemporal distribution of
SM. Furthermore, in-situ measurements are only available at a few
networks and regions worldwide, which makes it difficult to obtain
spatially continuous SM with such labor-intensive and time-consuming
point-based observations.
Following the principle of sensing depths for electromagnetic radi­
ation with different wavelengths, most of the currently available
remotely sensed SM is commonly referred to as skin or surface SM (e.g.
only a few millimeters for optical and thermal band) or near-surface SM
(e.g. a few centimeters for microwave sensors at X-, C- or L-frequency)
(Babaeian et al., 2019). For simplicity, the remotely sensed SM is uni­
formly recognized as surface soil moisture (SSM) hereafter in present
study. Although a number of literatures have investigated root-zone SM
estimation, most of these studies still require SSM as input to establish
connections with root-zone SM (Wagner et al., 1999; Albergel., 2008;
Manfreda et al., 2014). Hence, the present review article primary fo­
cuses on SSM retrieval from satellite data. In recent a few decades, the
rapid development of remote sensing technology provides an opportu­
nity to obtain spatially continuous SSM from space, and a variety of
investigations have highlighted the capacity and potential of deriving
SSM with different electromagnetic spectra, from the optical to the
microwave regions (Babaeian et al., 2019; Petropoulos et al., 2015;
Schmugge, 1983; Njoku and Entekhabi, 1996; Carlson, 2007; Wang and
Qu, 2009; Zhang and Zhou, 2016). Several global remotely sensed SSM
products such as the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT), Advanced
Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E),
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer2 (AMSR2), Soil Moisture
Active Passive (SMAP), Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and
Climate Change Initiative (CCI) HYPERLINK "https://earthdata.nasa.
gov/earth-observation-data/near-real-time/download-nrt-data/amsr2-
nrt", are publicly available at present, allowing for an unprecedented
opportunity to apply these data products to various disciplines such as
agricultural monitoring, hydrological modeling, meteorological fore­
casting and global climate change. However, several major scientific
2
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
challenges, including spatiotemporal gaps between producers and users,
uncertainty assessment, merging or fusion of multiple data sources, and
ensuring consistency between different observations remain, preventing
further development.
In recent a few years, several critical review articles such as Babaeian
et al. (2019), Petropoulos et al. (2015) and Peng et al. (2021) have
provided insights on SSM retrieval from satellite observations. A com­
mon issue of the first two review articles is that they have paid more
attention on retrieval algorithms and products from microwave remote
sensing, since microwave remote sensing is still the mainstream for SSM
retrieval at present and future. However, the two review articles have
different emphasis. Specifically, Babaeian et al. (2019) have introduced
ground-based measurements and proximal sensing methods in detail,
along with the potential applications of satellite SSM dataset, whereas
Petropoulos et al. (2015) critically explored most of the widely used SM
retrieval methods in a range of different global ecosystems. Unlike the
first two review articles, Peng et al. (2021) primarily summarized
several applications related to satellite SM products, and also identified
gaps between the characteristics of currently available SSM products
and the application requirements. On these bases, the present review
article aims to present an overview of the state-of-the art in SSM
retrieval algorithms, with a particular emphasis on SSM retrievals from
visible/near-infrared (VIS/NIR) and thermal-infrared (TIR) observations
to direct future research towards improving satellite-derived SSM
products at fine spatial resolution. A main motivation for this can be
attributed to the fact that SSM retrieval from VIS/NIR and TIR is easier
to be used in various applications at regional, watershed or field scales
with a direct manner, rather than indirectly disaggregated from most of
the currently available microwave SSM products with coarse spatial
resolution. Another significant objective of this paper is to summarize
new concepts and algorithms proposed in recent years for deriving SSM
primarily from the synergy of VIS/NIR and TIR satellite observations.
Specifically, these new concepts and algorithms were originally devel­
oped based on different perspectives of remotely sensed information in
comparison to the commonly used methods, yet to the best of our
knowledge, they have not been well documented in previous review
articles as yet. Further, the present paper provides some new insights for
future research with respect to obtaining ready to use SSM datasets for
various domains. This study acknowledges that aircraft and airborne
remote sensing platforms are commonly recognized as possessing
limited geographical and/or temporal coverage, and therefore focuses
on satellite remote sensing.
The article is organized as follows: Section 2 and Section 3 present
the details of basic theories, principal methods, advantages and draw­
backs, and future research directions for SSM retrieval from remote
sensing observations at single-band and multi-band, respectively. Sec­
tion 4 concludes the paper and presents outlooks for future de­
velopments of satellite SSM algorithms.
2. SSM retrieval from single-band observation
2.1. VIS/NIR
2.1.1. Basic theories and principal methods
Wavelengths of 0.4–2.5 μm (also called the solar domain) represent
the radiation of the sun reflected from the Earth’s surface, which is
known as reflectance. Within the solar domain, water absorption has
significant differences between water absorption bands and non-
absorption bands. The different absorption features are usually used
for the establishment of SSM retrieval approaches. Due to the simple
theory and easily available ground and satellite observation data, VIS/
NIR remotely sensed surface reflectance has been widely implemented
for SSM estimation (Amani et al., 2016; Babaeian et al., 2018; Hassan-
Esfahani et al., 2015; Sadeghi et al., 2015, 2017; Fabre et al., 2015;
Lesaignoux et al., 2013).
Spectral reflectance differences due to SSM change were first
Z.-L. Li et al.
observed nearly a hundred years ago. Experiments on many soils with
different SSM showed that reflectance decreased as SSM increased
(Ångström, 1925). A number of empirical methods were then estab­
lished, based on the relationship between SSM and spectral reflectance,
or their successive derivatives (Muller and Décamps, 2011; Gao et al.,
2013; Nagy et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2003; Haubrock et al., 2008). It is
noteworthy that most of the studies using spectral reflectance to infer
SSM are based on bare soils. Findings demonstrate that a linear rela­
tionship between spectral reflectance and SSM appears widely, while
some studies have also found the presence of a non-linear relationship
(Lobell and Asner, 2002; Liu et al., 2003). Although easy to apply, the
empirical equations between soil reflectance and SSM content are
commonly site-specific because soil texture, surface roughness and the
physical components of soil vary across different study areas. Specif­
ically, most of these methods are developed by means of single statistics,
multivariate analysis or wavelet analysis. In general, such methods can
be summarized as SSM being a function to direct spectral reflectance or
spectral reflectance-based index in the following form:
SSM = f (ρi or index) (1)
where fmeans a function (similarly hereinafter), ρi is spectral reflectance
at channel i, whereasindexis commonly constituted by spectral reflec­
tance at multiple channels within the VIS/NIR band.
Compared to single spectral reflectance, indices constituted by re­
flectances at two or more channels within the VIS/NIR band that capable
of referring vegetation conditions, are usually conducted to obtain SSM
indirectly over vegetated areas. The first step for these methods is usu­
ally to create an appropriate index, and the next is to link the index to
SSM. Among these indices, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
(NDVI) is a simple but good indicator of SSM, because water stress can
lead to spectral variation of the canopy in red and NIR bands. Several
early studies have reported acceptable correlation between annual or
monthly SSM and NDVI (Adegoke and Carleton, 2002; Engstrom et al.,
2008; Schnur et al., 2010; Zribi et al., 2010). However, a time delay
probably exists when directly using NDVI to infer SSM conditions,
because vegetation has a self-adjustment function to adapt to SSM
change within a short time. With the exception of the NDVI, most of
these indices were developed for drought monitoring or after drought.
That notwithstanding, they can reflect SSM conditions to a certain
extent. Taking the advantage of band differences between the sensitivity
of 1640 nm and 2130 nm for soil and vegetation respectively, the
normalized multi-band drought index proposed by Wang and Qu (2007)
can be used for both SSM and drought analysis. On the basis of the
previously proposed Perpendicular Drought Index (PDI) over bare soils
(Ghulam et al., 2007a), the Modified Perpendicular Drought Index
(MPDI) was developed by introducing Fractional Vegetation Cover
(FVC) for the removal of vegetation information from mixed pixels
(Ghulam et al., 2007a, 2007b). Similar to using a red and NIR spectral
feature space, numerous research was also conducted to investigate
empirical exponential relationship between reflectance and SSM over
vegetated areas. In this method, soil reflectances at red and NIR channels
were calculated by combining a soil line equation with a developed
empirical relationship between canopy and mixed pixel reflectance in a
red and NIR spectral feature space (Fig. 1) (Gao et al., 2013). The PDI
(the actual length between point E and F) can be written as:
1 with high accuracy where RMSE was below 0.04 m3/m3 with local
PDI = √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ (ρred + M⋅ρNIR ) (2)
M2 + 1
where Mis the slope of the soil line, ρred and ρNIRare reflectance at red
and NIR channels, respectively. To apply the PDI over vegetated areas,
the MPDI was later modified as follows:
( )
MPDI =
ρv,red + M⋅ρNIR − FVC ρv,red + M⋅ρv,NIR
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ (3)
(1 − FVC) M 2 + 1
3
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
Fig. 1. Sketch of NIR- and red- reflectance based PDI (adapted from Ghulam
et al., 2007a, 2007b). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this
figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) (For
interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.)
whereρv, redand ρv, NIRare vegetation reflectance in the red and NIR
channels, respectively. Specifically, ρv, redand ρv, NIR can be determined
as constant for known vegetation (Ghulam et al., 2007a, 2007b).
Compared to the empirical methods, spectral reflectance-based semi-
empirical and physically-based methods for deriving SSM are used less.
The Gaussian model and the relative absorption depth model are two
typical semi-empirical methods developed on the basis of the continuum
of the spectrum (Whiting et al., 2004). Specifically, for the Gaussian
model, Whiting et al. (2004) fitted an inverted Gaussian function to the
continuum and calibrated the area below the curve to SSM. With the
exception of semi-empirical methods, a few physically-based models
have also been developed to obtain SSM such as models based on Fresnel
coefficients (Lekner and Dorf, 1988), the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law
(Bach and Mauser, 1994) and the Kubelka-Munk two-flux radiative
transfer model (Sadeghi et al., 2015). In a recent study, based on a
multilayer radiative transfer model, the MARMITforSMC was proposed
to derive SSM from soil reflectance spectra (Bablet et al., 2018).
Compared to most of the other existing semi-empirical or physically-
based methods, it was found that the MARMITforSMC provides lower
RMSE of approximately 3% if the calibration step is applied soil by soil
or approximately 5% if the calibration step is implemented within soil
classes. However, most of these aforementioned physically-based
models are suitable only for bare soils. In recent years, a novel
physically-based trapezoidal space which is suitable over vegetated
areas, namely the OPtical TRApezoid Model (OPTRAM), was initially
proposed by Sadeghi et al. (2017) and was further used to map SSM with
the MOderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images
by Babaeian et al. (2018). Results based on Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8
observations indicated that the OPTRAM can obtain SSM estimates
calibration and below 0.05 m3/m3 without calibration (Sadeghi et al.,
2017). In general, the development of the OPTRAM was based on the
idea of replacing Land Surface Temperature (LST) in the traditional TIR
and VIS/NIR trapezoid model with a measure of SSM in the optical
domain. Fig. 2 depicts the sketch of the OPTRAM formed by the spatial
distribution of NDVI versus Shortwave-infrared Transformed Reflec­
tance (STR). In this trapezoidal space, STR was determined as:
Z.-L. Li et al.
Fig. 2. Sketch of the OPTRAM constituted by STR and NDVI (adapted from
Sadeghi et al., 2017).
(1 − R)2
STR = (4)
2R
where R is surface reflectance for the shortwave-infrared electromag­
netic domain.
Following the space, SSM for a given pixel can be estimated from its
STR as follows:
STR − STRd
SSM = θd + × (θw − θd ) (5)
STRw − STRd
where θdand θware SM content for the dry and wet edges, respectively;
STRdand STRware STR at dry and wet states, respectively. With the
assumption that STRdand STRw being linear relations to NDVI, the dry
and wet edge can be written as:
STRd = id + sd × NDVI (6)
STRw = iw + sw × NDVI (7)
where idand sdare intercept and slope of the dry edge; iwand sware
intercept and slope of the wet edge.
2.1.2. Advantages and drawbacks
As far as we are aware, most of the spectral reflectance-based
methods for deriving SSM remain at the level of laboratory in­
vestigations or field experiments, and no spectral reflectance-based SSM
products are presently available for regional or global scale applications.
In general, two main limitations have significantly constrained the
routine obtaining of SSM content with VIS/NIR observations for actual
applications. The one is that the VIS/NIR measurements have relatively
shallow measurement depth with only a few millimeters, due to the
characteristic of the electromagnetic radiation within the VIS/NIR
domain. The other is that VIS/NIR observations are easily affected by
clouds, making the methods only suitable under clear sky conditions. In
addition, it notes that a large amount of ground SSM measurements are
normally required to develop links with remotely sensed reflectance or
indices in the calibration step for the empirical methods, whereas
physically-based methods commonly require complicated soil-by-soil
calibration step before applying the methods with actual satellite data.
Nevertheless, several recently proposed physically-based methods
such as that originally developed by Sadeghi et al. (2017) and further
modified by Ambrosone et al. (2020) have overcame the limitation of
complicated calibration process, providing a possibility of a universal
parameterization, which has shown potential in agricultural applica­
tions (Babaeian et al., 2018; Mananze et al., 2019). Furthermore, most of
the semi-empirical or physically-based methods for estimating SSM from
VIS/NIR observations can reveal good accuracy with Root Mean Square
4
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
Error (RMSE) of approximately 3% (Sadeghi et al., 2015; Bablet et al.,
2018; Whiting et al., 2004), which is close to the time domain reflec­
tometry accuracy. Except for these, VIS/NIR can also obtain SSM with
high spatial resolution, which is desirable in agriculture applications.
2.1.3. Future research directions
It notes that empirical methods for SSM retrieval from VIS/NIR ob­
servations seem to be more widely used in recent two decades. However,
the latest achievements with physically-based methods have indicated a
promising research direction. In particular, the recently proposed
OPTRAM shown reliable accuracy when applying to several mainstream
optical data including MODIS, Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 (Sadeghi et al.,
2017; Babaeian et al., 2018; Ambrosone et al., 2020), which has
extended the traditional laboratory analysis to remotely sensed obser­
vations. To this end, future work can focus on strengthening the de­
velopments of physically-based SSM algorithms to better support
agricultural managements. Specifically, the methods for universal pa­
rameterizations and calibration of the physically-based SSM algorithms
should also be investigated. In addition, because the VIS/NIR can reflect
SSM with only a few millimeters, it is worthwhile to explore the relations
between VIS/NIR derived SSM estimates and those in deeper soil layers.
Except for these, an increasing number of literatures have highlighted
the feasibility of removing the effects of clouds on VIS/NIR channels and
restoring the ground information (Du et al., 2019; Ebel et al., 2020; Lin
et al., 2013; Shen et al., 2014), which seems to be favorable for obtaining
SSM over pixels contaminated by clouds. However, a major issue existed
behind such reconstruction algorithms is that they commonly restore
cloud-contaminated pixels by employing spatiotemporal information
from neighboring cloud-free pixels. As a consequence, the restored
ground information for a cloudy pixel is probably different from its
actual information. Specifically, most of the current studies remain in
the stage of information reconstruction only, further investigations are
still required to evaluate the accuracy of SSM retrieval with the recon­
structed VIS/NIR data.
2.2. TIR
2.2.1. Basic theories and principal methods
A wavelength of 3–14 μm is commonly known as the TIR band.
Within this spectral range, radiances from ground surface can be
detected by sensors onboard satellites. Normally, two surface parame­
ters, namely the land surface emissivity and the LST, can be directly
retrieved from TIR measurements. In general, the Thermal Inertia (TI) is
the most commonly used TIR method for deriving SSM. Estimating SSM
from TI can be summarized into two steps, including obtaining TI from
TIR observations and estimating SSM from TI.
TI is a bulk property that describes the resistance of a material to LST
variations (Cracknell and Xue, 1996), which can be defined as:
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
TI = kρc (8)
where k is the thermal conductivity (W m− 1 K− 1), ρ is the bulk density
(kg m− 3), and c is the specific heat capacity (J kg− 1 K− 1). It is evident
that TI can be recognized as an SSM proxy, given that the soil thermal
conductivity changes with fluctuating moisture level and all other soil
properties remain unchanged over space or time (Khle, 1977). However,
because the three parameters are difficult to obtain from remote sensing
measurements, it is difficult to determine TI directly from remotely
sensed observations.
Since the early 1970s, a number of approaches have been developed
to estimate TI from TIR remotely sensed observations. Such approaches
primarily included the diurnal temperature amplitude-based method
(Xue and Cracknell, 1995), the night time temperature difference-based
method (Verhoef, 2004) and the least squares-based method (Raffy and
Becker, 1985; Abdellaoui et al., 1986). Among these methods, the
diurnal temperature amplitude-based method is presently the most
Z.-L. Li et al. Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673

widely used approach to estimate TI from TIR measurements. The

2.2.2. Advantages and drawbacks
diurnal temperature amplitude method originates from three general
In summary, TI-based SSM retrieval methods take the advantage of
parameters, which are wind speed, air humidity and surface roughness-
inner physical connection between variations of SSM and soil thermal
based theory for estimating TI from remotely sensed data (Price, 1977).
characteristics. Generally, the physical basis of the TI-based SSM
To overcome these limitations, Xue and Cracknell (1995) proposed a
retrieval algorithms is clear to understand and the actual application is
simple and operational TI model by introducing the use of phase angle
easy to follow. In addition, it also notes that TIR-based methods can
information taken from the diurnal temperature variation. They used a
obtain SSM at fine spatial resolution as VIS/NIR-based approaches.
second-order approximation of the Fourier series for the LST to account
However, similar to the VIS/NIR-based methods, the TIR-based method
for the effects of surface evaporation over the regions with variability in
is also restricted to clear-sky conditions. Furthermore, it is also found
surface moisture and vegetative cover. However, the Xue and Cracknell
that the TI method is of limited use in areas with strong evapotranspi­
(1995) method still required a parameter, namely the time that
ration (Price, 1985), thus making it more feasible over bare or sparsely
maximum LST occurs, which is difficult to obtain from polar-orbit sat­
vegetated areas. Similar to the VIS/NIR methods, a number of TI-based
ellites. A later study by Sobrino and El Kharraz (1999) provided a so­
methods also focus on laboratory investigations or field experiments
lution to this problem from three different satellite passes. The
with significant accuracy with RMSE of approximately 5% (Verstraeten
advantage of the Sobrino and El Kharraz (1999) method is that TI can be
et al., 2006; Van doninck et al., 2011; Nearing et al., 2012; Veroustraete
derived from the remotely sensed images. However, it requires four
et al., 2012; Matsushima et al., 2018). Although the TI-based methods
valid LST measurements per day over nearly cloud-free conditions,
receive more attention compared to VIS/NIR methods, it is difficult to
which has raised the level of difficulty for practical applications, espe­
apply these methods for obtaining SSM in actual applications with
cially for polar-orbit satellites. Conversely, the least squares-based
remotely sensed observations over large regions because of the re­
method is particularly suitable for geostationary satellites. This
quirements of clear-skies, soil-by-soil calibration, bare or sparsely
method introduces multiple observations to fit the diurnal LST cycle and
vegetated conditions, and/or ground SSM measurements.
subsequently to obtain LST variation for any period within a day. An
advantage of the least squares-based method is that it can avoid the
2.2.3. Future research directions
errors induced by the assumptions in the diurnal temperature amplitude
Based on the aforementioned details, it is evident that LST is the most
and night time temperature difference methods, but it suffers from the
pivotal parameter for the TIR-based SSM retrieval methods. However, it
inherent problems of convergence, stability, and excessive computa­
should be noted that the algorithms for LST retrieval from TIR obser­
tional time. For simplicity, some researchers also use Apparent Thermal
vations are only feasible over clear-sky in theory, due to the impene­
Inertia (ATI) to replace TI for SSM retrieval in actual applications (Kang
trability of surface emitted radiation at TIR band through clouds. As a
et al., 2017).
consequence, varying degrees of gap commonly exist for LST retrieval,
After calculating or mapping TI from remote sensing data, the next
especially over large regions or humid areas. Although several ap­
step is to retrieve SSM from models that describe TI as a function of SSM.
proaches have been developed to fill the gaps (Metz et al., 2017; Li et al.,
Following the definition of TI in the previous formula, TI appears to
2018; Pham et al., 2019), a major concern may still exist that the LST
increase with the increment of thermal conductivity, bulk density and
obtained via spatiotemporal interpolation or statistical approaches is not
specific heat capacity. Among these three parameters, with the
an estimate of actual cloudy LST, but an approximation of theoretical
assumption that soil properties at the horizontal and vertical scale are
clear-sky LST over cloudy conditions. As a consequence, it can probably
consistent, SSM plays a significant role in the variation of soil thermal
lead to errors for the determination of SSM with the TIR-based algo­
conductivity and specific heat capacity. Hence, soil TI has a certain
rithms. Hence, the primary focus is to develop feasible methods for
correlation with SSM. This is the physical basis for retrieving SSM from
obtaining LST with high accuracy over cloudy pixels. This can be the
TIR-based TI. Currently, the Ma and Xue (MX) model, the Murray and
prior condition for SSM retrieval using TIR observations over large areas
Verhoef (MV) model and the empirical model are the three typically
in future developments. Another research direction is the developments
used models for modeling the relationships between TI and SSM. The MX
of universal models for estimating SSM from TI, regardless of soil
model is a semi-empirical method to link TI and gravimetric moisture
texture. A primary reason to this is that most of the currently available
content. Hence, soil bulk density is required to obtain soil volumetric
TI-based methods require soil texture or soil texture-derived soil hy­
water content. Similarly, the MV model also requires readily available
draulic properties. Although a number of soil texture digital maps at
soil characteristics such as soil texture and bulk density, making it
global scale such as the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD), the
difficult for extensive applications. In a later study, Lu et al. (2009)
Food and Agriculture Organization Digital Soil Map of the World
improved the MV model to make it a generic model by considering the
(DSMW) and the SoilGrids250m from the International Soil Reference
soil solid phase composition to soil thermal physical properties using the
and Information Centre (ISRIC), are available at present and have been
heat pulse technique. In a recent study, Lu et al. (2018) further improved
widely used for the determination of soil hydraulic properties, they are
the Lu et al. (2009) model by employing a finding that the parameter n
generally derived from limited soil samples worldwide and specifically
of dry soils varies linearly with TI. Among these methods, the empirical
feasible in land surface and hydrologicl modeling at large spatial scales
model requires a large number of ground SSM measurements to estab­
(Shangguan et al., 2014). As for actual applications over watershed,
lish either linear or exponential links with remotely sensed TI. To apply
regional or field scales, a number of studies have highlighted the feasi­
the TI methods over the regions without adequate measurements, Ver­
bility of predicting spatial distribution of soil texture with optical or
straeten et al. (2006) proposed the Soil Moisture Saturation Index
radar data especially using spatial interpretation or machine learing
(SMSI) to link SSM and TI, which can be written as:
methods (Shahriari et al., 2019; Bousbih et al., 2019; Domenech et al.,
SSM = SMSI × (SSM max − SSM min ) + SSM min (9) 2020). However, it is worthnothy that most of these methods are avai­
able over bare soils only, since canopies can significantly affect the
where SSMmaxand SSMmin refer to maximum and minimum SSM occur signial from soils. Hence, to reduce the uncertaties lead by soil texture in
during a long period, which can also be set as field capacity and wilting SSM retreival with TIR-based algorithms, it is suggested to develop soil
point, respectively. The SMSI can be obtained from present TI and its texture-independent algorithms in future developments. In addtion,
maximum (TImax) and minimum (TImin) values over a long period as: because most of the currently available methods use empirical rela­
TI − TI min tionship to link SSM and TIR measurements, it is also very important to
SMSI = (10) develop physical methods to estimate SSM directly from TIR
TI max − TI min
observations.

5
Z.-L. Li et al.
2.3. Microwave
Over the past decades, observations from both passive and active
sensors, including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (Bindlish
et al., 2003; Wen et al., 2003; Gao et al., 2006), the AMSR-E and AMSR2
(Jackson, 1993; Njoku and Chan, 2006; Owe et al., 2008; Santi et al.,
2012; Zeng et al., 2015), the Windsat (Li et al., 2010; Parinussa et al.,
2012), the Fengyun-3 (Shi et al., 2006a, 2006b; Parinussa et al., 2014),
the Aquarius (Bindlish et al., 2015), the SMOS (Wigneron et al., 2007;
Kerr et al., 2012), the ASCAT (Wagner et al., 1999; Naeimi et al., 2009),
the SMAP (Entekhabi et al., 2010), and the Sentinel-1 (Paloscia et al.,
2013; Das et al., 2019), have been widely used for SSM retrieval,
routinely producing a wealth of SSM products. Inferring the geophysical
parameters of the land, ocean, and atmosphere from microwave obser­
vations is one of the most important applications in the microwave
remote sensing domain, which has benefitted various environmental
disciplines, including hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, geogra­
phy, and so forth. A practical and reliable surface scattering and emis­
sion model can help us gain physical insights into the interaction of
microwaves with media bounded by rough interfaces, which in turn can
not only expand and improve our understanding of the surface scat­
tering and emission mechanism but also guide the design of appropriate
sensor configuration for specific applications as well as the development
of retrieval algorithm for the parameters of interest.
2.3.1. Basic theories and principal methods for passive microwave
Passive microwave sensors measure the naturally emitted intensity
of microwave emission (at wavelength λ = 1–30 cm) from the Earth’s
surface, expressed as the brightness temperature Tb (Mladenova et al.,
2014; Gao et al., 2020). An increase in frequency normally leads to a
reduction in emission originating in soil along with an enhanced effect
of atmospheric and vegetation attenuation (Calvet et al., 2011;
Wigneron et al., 2003). The fundamental basis of microwave (both
passive and active) remote sensing of SSM is the significant contrast
between the dielectric properties of dry bare soil (~4) and water (~80)
(Schmugge et al., 1974), and these changes in dielectric properties can
be detected by satellite measured Tb. The commonly used passive mi­
crowave SSM retrievals are those at L (0.39–1.55 GHz), C (3.9–5.75
GHz), and X (5.75–10.9 GHz) frequencies. Commonly, the effective SSM
sensing depth at the L-frequency and C/X-frequency is approximately
0–5 cm and 0–1 cm, respectively, which is also depend on SSM condi­
tions (Lv et al., 2018; Ma et al., 2019). Moreover, the sensitivity of C/X-
frequency to changes in SSM conditions has been shown to almost cease
at a vegetation water content of approximately 1.5 kg/m2 (Njoku and Li,
1999), whereas the limit of L-band can be up to 5 kg/m2 (Njoku and
Entekhabi, 1996). As a result, the L-band is widely recognized to be the
most promising for SSM retrieval at present. Methods to estimate SSM
from passive microwave measurements can be broadly cataloged into
two types, including empirical and physically-based approaches.
Notably, the use of other methods, such as the neural network approach,
is not presented in the present section.
Empirical methods are commonly used to develop regression re­
lationships between passive microwaves measured Tb (or microwave
surface emissivity e) and ground SSM over bare soils (Eagleman and Lin,
1976; Newton et al., 1982; Schmugge et al., 1986; Jackson et al., 1999;
Wigneron et al., 2004; Saleh et al., 2006; AI-Yaari et al., 2017). Such
methods can be summarized as:
SSM = f (Tb or e) (11)
To eliminate the polarization difference at a large view angle (>30◦ ),
especially when SSM is at a relatively high level, the microwave polar­
ization difference index can also be used to link SSM using regression
analysis (Owe et al., 2001; De Meesters et al., 2005). For vegetated
surfaces, empirical relationships between Tb (or e) and SSM become
more complicated. Specifically, linear relationships between Tb (or e)
and SSM are commonly established for each land cover type/biomes or
6
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
group of pixels (Choudhury et al., 1987; Teng et al., 1993; Rodríguez-
Fernández et al., 2015). Furthermore, the slopes and intercepts of the
regression lines are then analyzed in terms of land cover variables,
which can be determined from ancillary data.
It notes that empirical methods were primarily used in early stages.
Nowadays, physical approaches based on the Radiative Transfer Equa­
tion (RTE) have been widely used to determine the contribution of
satellite-detected Tb from three major layers, namely atmosphere,
vegetation and soil, as shown in Fig. 3. For the physical methods, the τ-ω
model proposed by Mo et al. (1982) commonly acts as a baseline for
almost all the RTE for estimating SSM. Compared to empirical methods,
physical approaches are more complicated. In general, there are two
phases to obtain SSM from passive microwave-derived Tb: first to relate
Tb to soil dielectric constant with the RTE, and subsequently to link soil
dielectric constant with SSM using dielectric mixing models (Karthi­
keyan et al., 2017).
For the first phase, efforts towards improving and evaluating the
emissivity of smooth and rough soil surface for developing relationships
between Tb and soil dielectric constant can date back to the 1970s
(Stogryn, 1970; Njoku and Kong, 1977). In general, the Fresnel’s
reflectivity equations can be applied to obtain the emissivities at passive
microwave frequencies over homogenous soil with a smooth surface.
However, the situation may become complicated when the soil surface is
rough. Several studies have highlighted the importance of considering
the effects of roughness for accurate emissivity retrieval from natural
surfaces (Wegmuller and Matzler, 1999). Although using some statistical
parameters such as height standard deviation and horizontal correlation
length can provide insight into the scattering mechanisms and help to
adjust the emissivity over rough soils, these parameters are difficult to
obtain in practical applications (Njoku and Li, 1999). For this reason,
some semi-empirical models have been developed to calculate the
reflectivity for rough soils. Such models include the Q/h model (Wang
and Choudhury, 1981) and Q/p model (Shi et al., 2006a, 2006b). For the
second phase, to link SSM to dielectric constant via the dielectric mixing
models, efforts were primarily focused on semi-empirical models and
field observations. Such models were developed using underlying
physics and were partly based on several field scale datasets dealing
with the specific properties of soils. Among these models, the empirical
model proposed by Hallikainen et al. (1985) and the semi-empirical
model provided by Dobson et al. (1985) have received most attention.
It notes that most of this situation occurs over bare soils where the
contributions of satellite detected Tb are primarily from soil and atmo­
sphere. Except for these, another noteworthy issue is the neglect of the
effects of atmosphere in traditional approaches. However, a recent
investigation confirmed that the effects of atmosphere on satellite-
Fig. 3. Sketch of the passive microwave RTE, in which satellite-detected Tb are
primarily described as from three major layers including atmosphere, vegeta­
tion and soil.
Z.-L. Li et al.
detected Tb would increase with the increment of frequency (Han et al.,
2017).
In addition to the effects of roughness surface on SM retrieval,
vegetation is also an important influencing factor on relationships be­
tween Tb and soil dielectric constant. In τ-ω model, ω is the single
scattering albedo and may be calculated theoretically or assigned based
on land cover types, whereas τ is Vegetation Optical Depth (VOD) that
commonly assumed to be varied with time and can be estimated from
either VIS/NIR observations or by using multi-polarization or multi-
angle passive microwave data (Kerr et al., 2012; De Meesters et al.,
2005; Pan et al., 2014; Sawada et al., 2017). Because methods for esti­
mating SSM from passive microwave and VIS/NIR synergies is to be
presented in following Section 3.2.2, the present section only includes
the methods for SSM retrieval with passive microwave measurements
only. In general, because there are commonly more unknowns than
observations in the RTE for estimating SSM, two main approaches have
been intensively investigated. The one is to reduce the number of un­
knowns by merging multi-parameters (e.g. surface roughness and VOD)
into a mixing parameter (Pan et al., 2014; Zeng et al., 2015; Parrens
et al., 2017); the other is to simultaneously retrieval SSM, VOD and/or
other parameters such as LST and surface roughness (Njoku and Li,
1999; Owe et al., 2001, 2008; Konings et al., 2016; Parrens et al., 2016;
Karthikeyan et al., 2019). In a recent study, with the assumptions that
vegetation changes slowly and VOD remains constant over a time win­
dow (e.g. w), a method to simultaneously estimate SSM, VOD and sur­
face roughness was proposed by Karthikeyan et al. (2019). In this
method, within the time window of w day, there will be 2w measure­
ments of Tb with dual-polarized observations for a single overpassing per
day. As a result, these 2w measurements of Tb correspond to 2w RTEs
and w + 1 unknowns (w SSM retrievals plus one VOD).
2.3.2. Basic theories and principal methods for active microwave
In contrast to VIS/NIR, TIR and passive remote sensing, active mi­
crowave instruments have built-in illumination to transmit electro­
magnetic radiation and receive echo signals. Specifically, the different
energy power between the transmitted and received electromagnetic
radiation, namely the backscatter coefficient, is used to connect SSM.
Similar to passive microwave, the substantial difference between dry
bare soil and water is the physical basis for SSM retrieval from active
microwave signals. The most common wavelengths for active micro­
wave SSM retrievals are at L (0.39–1.55 GHz), C (3.9–5.75 GHz), and X
(5.75–10.9 GHz) frequencies. Although P-band data has also been used
to estimate root-zone SM in several investigations (Boopathi et al., 2018;
Etminan et al., 2020; Tabatabaeenejad et al., 2020), because no on-orbit
P-band satellites are available at present, they are not included in pre­
sent review article.
It is known that longer wavelengths can penetrate further into
vegetation and soil than short wavelengths. Normally, radar signals can
be polarized and observed in both horizontal (H) and vertical (V)
fashion, allowing for making co-polarized (HH or VV) or cross-polarized
(HV or VH) backscatters (Kornelsen and Coulibaly, 2013). Low inci­
dence angles, long wavelengths (L-band) and either HH or HV polari­
zation are the pre-eminent sensor parameters for SSM estimation
(Barrett et al., 2009). In this study, we focus on the commonly used
imaging sensors, namely the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). There are
three general types of modeling approaches, i.e., the empirical models,
the semi-empirical models, and the theoretical models. The empirical
and semi-empirical models often involve several fitted parameters that
are derived from limited field observations. Although often working well
on the same or similar dataset, the models are site-dependent. As a
result, they are limited, to a certain extent, in the modeling of surface
scattering and emission for a variety of surface profiles. Therefore, the
site-independent theoretical models rooted in strictly physical laws have
become an essential and popular tool to help us understand the inter­
action between electromagnetic fields and natural surfaces. Until now, a
number of empirical, physical and semi-empirical methods have been
7
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
proposed to relate the radar backscattering coefficient (σ) to SSM over
bare (or sparsely vegetated) surfaces.
Empirical models mainly relate SSM with the σ directly using sta­
tistical regression as follows:
SSM = f (σ ) (12)
Such empirical relationships are linear (Zribi et al., 2005; Gorrab
et al., 2014) and non-linear (Zribi and Dechambre, 2002; Baghdadi
et al., 2007; Narvekar et al., 2015). However, empirical models appear
to be generally valid only for the surface conditions and radar param­
eters at experiments time (Petropoulos et al., 2015). Moreover, most of
the empirical models require that SSM is in medium status and surface
roughness remains the same (Gorrab et al., 2014). All these limitations
make it difficult for mapping SSM over large spatial scales.
Physical models possess a solid theoretical basis by the mathematical
inversion of radar backscattering coefficients in the interactions be­
tween soil and microwave radiation. The theoretical models can be
categorized into two principal classes, i.e., the numerical models and the
analytical models. The former is based on the numerical solution of
Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic field (Tsang et al., 2013).
Though the numerical models can yield very high accurate simulations,
they are too computationally expensive, making their direct application
analyze the microwave satellite data rather tricky. In contrast, the
analytical models give the right balance between simulation accuracy
and computational efficiency. The analytical models’ allure is that they
significantly improve the computational efficiency compared with the
numerical methods. Simultaneously, they ensure a reasonably high ac­
curacy in their application domain, which makes them quickly and
efficiently employed in numerous microwave remote sensing applica­
tions. At present, the small perturbation model (Ulaby et al., 1986), the
Kirchhoff model (Beckmann and Spizzichino, 1963) and the Integral
Equation Model (IEM) or Advanced IEM (AIEM) (Fung et al., 1992,
1994, Fung and Chen, 2010, Chen et al., 2003) are three typical physical
models. Among the three models, the small perturbation model and
Kirchhoff model are valid only in a limited range of surface roughness.
To this end, based on the two models, the IEM (or AIEM) has extended its
application for a much wider roughness range. Analysis of the scattering
and emission predicted by the AIEM by verifying with a rich supply of
numerical simulations and experimental measurements has been re­
ported (Dong et al., 2013; Baghdadi et al., 2011; Zeng et al., 2017).
Semi-empirical models are developed from physical models-derived
simulated or experimental datasets. These models can simplify the
relationship between backscattering coefficients and SSM conditions,
making it easier to apply with fewer input parameters. Compared to
empirical models, semi-empirical models are commonly not site-specific
and can be used in conditions where little information on surface
roughness is known (Baghdadi et al., 2008). The most popular semi-
empirical models at present are the Oh model (Oh et al., 1992; Oh,
2004) and the Dubois model (Dubois et al., 1995). In recent studies,
following a previous investigation on the analytic solution to the first-
order interaction contribution for bistatic scattering (Quast and Wag­
ner, 2016), Quast et al. (2019) further explored a novel and promising
semi-empirical first-order radiative transfer modeling approach for SSM
retrieval. Specifically, the model-parameterization in the proposed
approach incorporates only two temporally varying parameters (SSM
and VOD). Results of the method with ASCAT data over 158 sites within
France indicate good overall correlation of determination (approxi­
mately 0.6 to 0.8) between estimated SSM and simulated values.
It should be noted that the models mentioned here are generally
based on bare soils. To obtain SSM over areas covered with vegetation,
the change detection method is a feasible alternative (Ouellette et al.,
2017). The change detection method assumes that roughness and
vegetation do not change between repeat passes of radar observations,
thus the difference of backscatter coefficients will come from the SSM
status (Barrett et al., 2009). Specifically, the ASCAT SSM product is
produced on the basis of the change detection method (Brocca et al.,
Z.-L. Li et al.
2017). In recent studies, Bauer-Marschallinger et al. (2018, 2019)
developed a method to obtain daily SSM at kilometer-scale from the
fusion of ASCAT and Sentinel-1 data. In this method, the change
detection method was first used to derive each SSM data from ASCAT
and Sentinel-1 data, respectively, and the two SSM data were then fused
through temporal filtering at each gridded pixel following the Soil Water
Index (SWI) approach. Specifically, the fused product, namely
SCATSAR-SWI, is the first operational SSM products at high resolution
using active microwave data, which is now available in the Copernicus
Global Land Monitoring Services (https://land.copernicus.eu/global/).
2.3.3. Basic theories and principal methods for active and passive synergy
Due to the inherent characteristics of the coarse spatial resolution of
passive microwave and the low temporal interval of active microwave, a
main motivation for combining active and passive microwave mea­
surements is to provide SSM estimates with both higher spatial and
temporal resolution by complementary strengths. A number of studies
have investigated the synergy of active and passive microwave data for
estimating SSM (O’Neill et al., 1996; Chauhan, 1997; Lee and Ana­
gnostou, 2004; Narayan et al., 2006; Zhan et al., 2006; Piles et al., 2009;
Das et al., 2014, 2018; Dente et al., 2014; Akbar and Moghaddam, 2015;
Das et al., 2019). These methods can be simply summarized into two
categories, namely physical approaches and statistical methods.
Physical approaches usually include two steps. The first step is to
determine surface roughness/vegetation biomass using active mea­
surements, and the second step is to then estimate SSM from the com­
bination of active microwave derived-surface roughness/vegetation
biomass and passive brightness temperature. Specifically, O’Neill et al.
(1996) and Chauhan (1997) were among the pioneers to investigate the
physical methods for estimating SSM by active and passive synergies. A
key issue behind the physical approaches is the qualification of the ef­
fects of vegetation on SSM retrieval. To this end, some researchers
introduced a parameter σ/(1-e) to decouple soil effects from vegetation
because it was found to increase with vegetation biomass and is scarcely
influenced by SSM (Ferrazzoli and Guerriero, 2010; Guerriero et al.,
2012). A number of follow-up studies have also investigated the rela­
tionship between the σ and the e over vegetated soil surfaces, indicating
promising potential to obtain SSM from the synergy of active and passive
microwave (Guerriero et al., 2016; Jagdhuber et al., 2019).
In comparison to physical approaches, statistical methods are more
popular in the retrieval of SSM. Some approaches have served as
downscaling methods to obtain intermediate spatial scale SSM data. The
assumption behind such statistical methods is that vegetation growth
and surface roughness conditions remain relatively stable within a short
period, thus SSM is the main factor affecting both the passive
microwave-derived Tb and active microwave-derived σ. For example,
Das et al. (2011, 2014) developed a simple statistical method to obtain 9
km SSM estimates from the combined use of 3 km radar and 36 km
radiometer measurements of the soon to be launched SMAP mission. In
this statistical method, a regression slope is firstly determined from time
series radar co-polarized backscatter and SSM, and subsequently used to
detect high-resolution SSM spatial variability within the coarse-
resolution radiometer. Following these investigations, because the
SMAP radar malfunctioned and became inoperable since July 2015, Das
et al. (2019) recently combined Sentinel-1A/1B SAR and SMAP L-band
passive microwave-detected Tb to obtain a high resolution SSM product
with RMSE of approximately 0.05 m3/m3. In another study, Piles et al.
(2009) reported a change detection algorithm for estimating SSM at
intermediate spatial scales from the optimally merging relatively accu­
rate 36 km radiometer brightness temperature and relatively noisy 3 km
radar backscatter. In particular, this method has been used as the official
algorithm for producing a 9 km SSM product of the SMAP satellite.
Another statistical method for the synergistic use of active and passive
data is to produce improved SSM estimates at a global scale. With the
cumulative distribution function matching technique, an improved SSM
data was derived from the ASCAT and AMSR-E synergy (Liu et al.,
8
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
2011). An advantage of synergistic use of ASCAT and AMSR-E obser­
vations can not only increase the number of available observations, but
also has the capacity to minimally change the accuracy of SSM retrieval
from single sensor. Following this work, a later study developed a
method to merge SSM estimates from six historical and present passive
and active microwave SSM datasets into a single dataset (Liu et al.,
2012). In this merging method, passive and active microwave products
were used over sparsely and moderately vegetated regions, respectively.
For the areas where active and passive revealed similar results, the
average values of both products were taken. These ideas are the initial
algorithm of the currently available CCI SSM products whose latest
release covers a long time period over 40 years, from 1978 to 2019.
In addition to the two aforementioned algorithms, some authors
introduced the neural network for obtaining SSM from the synergy of
active and passive measurements (Rodríguez-Fernández et al., 2015;
Kolassa et al., 2016, 2017; Santi et al., 2016). Among these in­
vestigations, the neural network-based SSM product by Kolassa et al.
(2016, 2017) was developed from the combined use of the ASCAT
backscatter observations and AMSR-E brightness temperature. Evalua­
tion against other SSM datasets (e.g., CCI product, reanalysis and in-situ
measurements) shows that the neural network-based SSM products can
capture the observed SSM temporal variations with a station-average
correlation and anomaly correlation of 0.45 and 0.35, respectively.
2.3.4. Advantages and drawbacks
Compared to VIS/NIR and TIR remote sensing, passive microwave
remote sensing is independent of solar illumination, and it can obtain
surface information under cloudy sky conditions, which is beneficial for
SSM retrieval in all-weather conditions. However, because the natural
emission is weak at the frequencies where SSM is sensitive, the micro­
wave radiometers commonly need to observe a large area to detect such
a weak emission, resulting in a major disadvantage of passive micro­
wave because the spatial resolution is coarse. Moreover, because
different wavelength signals have different emission depths, the multi-
channel algorithm-based SSM is actually an “effective” SSM. Similar to
passive microwave, active microwave emissions also have the ability to
penetrate clouds, allowing for SSM retrieval in all-weather conditions.
However, active signals are also likely to be affected by soil surface
roughness and vegetation (Moran et al., 2004). Apart from this, an
advantage of active over passive microwave is the fine spatial resolution,
which is more suitable in actual applications at the field scale.
Although both active and passive microwave show great potential
for generating SSM separately, they have their own advantages and
disadvantages with respect to producing proper SSM products for ready
use in various domains. It is known that a significant superiority of the
active over the passive sensors is their finer spatial resolution, whereas a
more frequent revisit period can be commonly found in passive rather
than active missions. However, it notes that satellite constellation
constituted by multi-satellite can probably enhance observation in­
tervals for active sensors. For an instance, the ASCAT SSM product is
currently onboard three satellites with nearly six overpasses per day.
Moreover, due to the coarse passive and finer active signals feature
different sensitives to ground features, combining active and passive
measurements have the potential to decrease disturbing effects such as
surface roughness and vegetation biomass in SSM retrieval at the in­
termediate spatial scale. Furthermore, it is known that a minimum
period covering 30 years of SSM is usually recognized as an essential
data record in climate studies. However, any individual microwave
sensor cannot meet this requirement at present. To this end, merging
active and passive microwaves can provide complementary information
and potentially contribute to generating improved SSM datasets. The
combined SSM product of CCI is a successful attempt that can provide
global SSM over 40 years from 1978 to 2019 with its latest version.
However, it is worth noting that due to the completely difference
mechanisms in active/passive microwave, penetration depths between
the two techniques are probably different even at the same frequency,
Z.-L. Li et al.
which may lead to uncertainties in fusion process (Zhou et al., 2016).
In theory, active microwave remote sensing is an efficient and
effective way to fulfill the demand of SSM in various domains due to its
capability of inferring SSM both spatially and temporally at a fine spatial
resolution. In this regard, some promising results have been achieved in
some specific sites. However, decoupling the effects of SSM and surface
roughness from traditional radar backscatter remains very challenging.
Numerous studies have shown that surface roughness, particularly the
root-mean-square height, exerts significant impacts on radar back­
scatter, even stronger than that of SSM (Chen, 2020). In addition, the
radar backscatter signal is easy to get saturated in wet soil conditions (i.
e., backscatter no longer increases as SSM increases), resulting in much
reduced sensitivity to SSM. Consequently, obtaining high-precision SSM
at large extent, even global scale, by using traditional radar backscatter
measurements is still formidable.
Currently, passive microwave is more popular than active micro­
wave to estimate SSM in practical applications. In general, the accuracy
of SSM retrieval from microwave depends largely on vegetation condi­
tions. For bare soil, the theoretical accuracy of 1–2% by volume can be
obtained in principle for passive microwave (Njoku and Entekhabi,
1996). It is noteworthy that this accuracy is primarily based on labo­
ratory analysis under ideal conditions. However, such accuracies are
difficult to achieve in actual applications due to the effects of vegetation,
surface roughness and other factors. In general, microwave-based SSM
are commonly validated against ground SSM measurements or net­
works. Following global validation activities, most of the widely used
operational microwave-based SSM products, such as ASCAT, AMSR-E/
AMSR2, SMOS and SMAP, reveal reliable accuracy with most RMSE
varying from approximately 0.04 m3/m3 to 0.08 m3/m3 for different
ecosystems (Kim et al., 2018; AI-Yaari et al., 2019; Ma et al., 2019).
Specifically, with 600 in-situ data sets from 28 networks worldwide,
unbiased RMSE and triple collocation errors for the multi-microwave
blended CCI SM product show less variation between networks, with
average values around 0.04 and 0.05 m3/m3, whereas another blended
Soil Moisture Operational Product System product also exhibits similar
accuracy under the assessments with in-situ and reanalysis SM data
(Dorigo et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2020a, 2020b). In addition, the newly
developed high-resolution SSM product based on active/passive syn­
ergies from Sentinel and SMAP data also reveals significant accuracy
with RMSE around 0.05 m3/m3 (Das et al., 2019).
2.3.5. Future research directions
Although various retrieval approaches have been developed to
obtain SSM with information at different wavelengths, only a few among
the many remote sensing bands can be used to produce consistent
products that fulfill the requirements by Earth system applications at
present. Specifically, these requirements include full spatial coverage,
high spatiotemporal resolution (1–10 km and daily or sub-daily
observing cycle), reliable accuracy (unbiased RMSE less than 0.04 m3/
m3) and a long record (≥ 30 years). A major difficulty for fulfilling these
requirements is that most of the currently available satellite datasets
possess only relatively short record lengths of record compared to
meteorological stations, because few satellite sensors can serve for
longer than a decade. It is therefore difficult, in theory, to obtain
consistent satellite SSM datasets over a long time series.
Combining various single-sensor active and passive microwave SSM
products, the CCI SSM is one of the very few products that is currently
used in many Earth system applications. Although the latest released
version (v04.5) of the CCI products covers a period over 40 years, from
1978 to 2019, which can significantly contribute to a number of studies,
such as drought monitoring, precipitation and evapotranspiration over
large regions or even at the global scale, measurements from different
microwave sensors are used in the procedure to obtain the CCI products
over different periods, depending on the available microwave missions
over the period. The inconsistent inputs for each period probably make
the SSM products inconsistent and incomparable. Furthermore, because
9
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
different sensors can reflect SSM conditions with different soil depths,
most of the currently available SSM products or estimated SSM content
probably features different soil depths from pixel to pixel. This incon­
sistency can lead to issues when applying the satellite SSM datasets to
hydrological or ecological models where SSM at a uniform depth, for
example the top 5 cm, is commonly required. It is also well known that
SSM retrieval algorithms probably exhibit different accuracies under
different vegetation conditions. Specifically, increasing vegetation cover
can usually decrease the accuracy of estimated SSM for either TIR or
microwave retrievals. This inconsistency may lead to misunderstandings
of the interactions between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surfaces,
especially under densely vegetated areas. In summary, these numerous
inconsistences have severely limited both the methodological de­
velopments and actual applications of satellite SSM. In particular, the
land use/land cover change can further affect the acquisition of
consistent SSM over long time series. To make better use of remotely
sensed SSM in various actual applications, the investigation of new
theories to obtain consistent SSM datasets over long time series from
satellite data is urgently needed. In a recent study, Fluhrer et al. (2020)
developed a method to obtain surface roughness parameters (vertical
root-mean-square height and horizontal correlation length) simulta­
neously for bare soils from the active-passive microwave synergy.
Although further investigations of the approach over vegetated surfaces
should be more desirable, this study provided insight for obtaining
surface roughness from the combined use of active and passive micro­
wave data and more accurate SSM from microwave data, noting that
most of the currently available microwave SSM products use a static or
fixed surface roughness, whereas an accurate and dynamic surface
roughness is essential for improving the accuracy of SSM retrieval.
Bistatic (or multistatic) radar offers great potential to tackle these
challenges since the scattering signals acquire enriches, by expanding
the observation limits (both angular and wavenumber), the information
content for the parameters of interest. Therefore, inferring geophysical
parameters, e.g., SM, crop biomass, and snow depth in a bistatic mode
has attracted increasing attention in recent years. The global navigation
satellite signal reflectometry (GNSS-R) is an emerging bistatic radar
technique and provides the only satellite bistatic radar observations for
SM detection. The potential and effectiveness of GNSS-R in SSM esti­
mation has been extensively investigated in recent years, both theoret­
ically and experimentally. However, these efforts mostly focus on the
specular region due to received power considerations. The optimal
bistatic radar configurations (especially geometries outside of the plane
of incidence) for SSM estimation have been rarely explored. Only very
limited studies (Pierdicca et al., 2008; Zeng et al., 2016) looked into the
benefit of bistatic measurements for inferring SSM under various geo­
metric configurations. These studies found that bistatic radar signals are
more sensitive to SSM than monostatic radar backscatter, highlighting
the great potential for SSM retrieval by configuring bistatic radar ob­
servations. Due to the complexity of a bistatic radar system, future ef­
forts should focus on examining the technical feasibility of the identified
configurations by considering specific receiver sensitivity, dynamic
range, antenna footprint tracking, and synchronization, among others.
To this end, extensive indoor and field measurements should be con­
ducted to devise optimal and technically attainable bistatic radar con­
figurations (Zeng and Chen, 2018). In addition, with the upcoming
subdaily SAR in the next decades, it is promising to obtain vegetation
water dynamics with the subdaily SAR observations (Vermunt et al.,
2020), which can help to estimate SSM from SAR data. As a conse­
quence, it is possible that SSM retrieval over vegetated regions no longer
limits to change detection method or depends on additional VIS/NIR
observations.
Z.-L. Li et al.
3. SSM retrieval from multi-band observations
3.1. VIS/NIR and TIR synergies
Because most of the aforementioned methods for deriving SSM from
single VIS/NIR or TIR data are feasible over bare soils, an important
intention for the synergistic methods is to address and resolve the dif­
ficulties encountered in discriminating the vegetation effect for SSM
retrieval (Barrett et al., 2009; Petropoulos et al., 2020). Up to present, a
number of studies have been dedicated to investigate SSM retrieval from
the synergistic use of VIS/NIR and TIR observations (Moran et al., 1994;
Sandholt et al., 2002; Sobrino et al., 2007; Stisen et al., 2008; Zhang
et al., 2015; Przeździecki and Zawadzki, 2020). It should be noted that
almost all the VIS/NIR and TIR synergetic approaches are based on the
configuration of the spatially distributed FVC and LST, namely the
triangular or trapezoidal feature space (denoted as LST-FVC hereafter).
Several earlier critical review articles such as by Petropoulos et al.
(2009) and Carlson (2007), were specifically designed to present the
topic of SSM retrieval from LST-FVC feature space and have well
documented the issues as comprehensive as possible involved in this
method. In recent a few years, several new concepts and algorithms have
been proposed based on remotely sensed VIS/NIR and TIR observations.
In particular, the “pixel-to-pixel” scheme of LST-FVC feature space and
the temporal VIS/NIR and TIR based algorithms have overcome some of
the difficulties encountered in previous VIS/NIR and TIR synergetic
approaches for SSM retrieval, which have not been well documented in
previous review articles. The following sub-sections are primarily
focused on these two newly developed methods for SSM retrievals from
VIS/NIR observations.
3.1.1. Basic theories and principal methods for spatial information with
VIS/NIR and TIR synergies
Up to present, the most popular VIS/NIR and TIR synergetic methods
for SSM retrievals are the so-called triangular or trapezoidal feature
space, constituted by the two-dimension scatterplots of Vegetation Index
(VI) and surface radiant temperature or LST. Since a comprehensive
review on the progress of LST-FVC feature space for SSM retrieval has
been conducted by Petropoulos et al. (2009), readers are encouraged to
refer to this critical review article for more details. The present sub-
section is to simply retrospect the history of traditional spatial
information-based feature space and subsequently to inspire the newly
developed pixel-to-pixel scheme of the feature space in the next sub-
section.
Early in the 1980s, the regular triangular or trapezoidal shape of
scatterplot composed by FVC and LST were successively used in a
number of studies (Carlson et al., 1981; Goward et al., 1985). Carlson
et al. (1981) first highlighted a potentially discernible relationship be­
tween SSM conditions and FVC. Later, it was found that pixels with the
same soil moisture availability (M0) values within the LST-FVC trian­
gular space could be plotted as isopleths (Carlson and Buffum, 1989).
Since then, a number of studies have been proposed to infer SSM status
from the LST-FVC feature space using various spatial data (Moran et al.,
1994; Carlson et al., 1995; Gillies et al., 1997; Goward et al., 2002). A
typical study of these efforts is by Sandholt et al. (2002) who firstly
proposed an interpretation to estimate SSM with the Advanced Very
High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data by linking the triangular
feature space to the Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index. With the
exception of the traditional LST-FVC feature space, many other forms of
feature space have also been proposed such as the LST-albedo feature
space (Gómez et al., 2005; Sobrino et al., 2007) and the triangular
feature space constituted by LST variation (e.g., day-night different or
diurnal change) and various VI (Wang et al., 2006; Stisen et al., 2008;
Zhang et al., 2015). Although the emergence of the triangular or trap­
ezoidal shape was initially found simply based on the two-dimension
scatterplot of FVC and LST, the physical basis of the feature space can
be reasonably explained as the decrease of sensitivity of SSM to LST with
10
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
the increasing of FVC (Petropoulos et al., 2009). Specifically, compared
to the triangular space, the trapezoidal space occurs because LST keeps
increasing when FVC at its maximum value. Fig. 4 depicts a typical
configuration and associated physical interpretations of the LST-FVC
trapezoidal feature space or scatterplot in detail. It notes that pixels
within a same window is commonly regarded to have homogeneous
meteorological conditions. As a consequence, it is always subjective to
apply the spatial information-based LST-FVC feature space for esti­
mating SSM, since it is difficult to determine a study area where the
underlying surfaces and meteorological conditions completely fulfill the
requirements by a feature space.
3.1.2. Pixel-to-pixel scheme of the LST-FVC feature space
The pixel-to-pixel scheme of the LST-FVC feature space is a new
concept assuming that a unique and virtual feature space exist for each
satellite pixel, which is different from the original feature space
constituted by spatially distributed scatterplot of FVC and LST. The
motivation of the pixel-to-pixel scheme of the LST-FVC feature space is
to avoid the rigorous requirements of underlying vegetation/SSM and
meteorological conditions for the traditional spatial information based
feature space. As for the traditional LST-FVC scatterplot-based feature
space shown in Fig. 4, the image interpretation method is commonly
used to obtain the dry and wet edges. In general, the image interpreta­
tion method normally requires uniform atmospheric conditions. More­
over, the underlying surface should cover full range vegetation
coverages from 0 to 100%, and SSM content from minimum to
maximum values should occur over the study areas. Such critical re­
quirements make it difficult to apply to large regions. However, a sig­
nificant advantage of the image interpretation method is that the dry
and wet edges can be obtained from all the satellite observations and
thus no auxiliary data are needed to derive SSM.
Fig. 5 depicts a virtual feature space for a given pixel (e.g. P) in
detail. For this virtual feature, LST at the four endpoints (A, B, C, and D)
are required to form the virtual feature space. Specifically, these four
theoretical LST values correspond to land surface for dry bare soil, full
vegetation cover with zero water availability, well-watered full vege­
tation cover and saturated bare soil, respectively. Moran et al. (1994)
firstly applied a theoretical procedure via the principle of surface energy
balance to determine the theoretical LST values for the endpoints as
follows:
Fig. 4. Summary of the key descriptors and physical interpretations of the LST-
FVC trapezoidal feature space or scatterplot (adapted from Petropoulos
et al., 2009).
Z.-L. Li et al. Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673

where MPand MN are the lengths between the point M and P and M and
N, respectively, Ts is LST for the given pixel P shown in Fig. 5.
To further convert M0 to SSM with volumetric basis, soil hydraulic
properties are required to interpolate M0 between 0 (e.g. correspond to
wilting point) and 1 (e.g. correspond to field capacity) as follows:
( )
SSM = M0 × θfc − θwt + θwt (15)

Fig. 5. A virtual trapezoid feature space for a given satellite pixel (e.g. P) with
hypothetical FVC (from 0 to 1) and LST conditions. Point A represents dry bare
soil (LST = Ts,max and FVC = 0); point B represents full vegetation cover with
zero water availability (LST = Tv,max and FVC = 1); point C represents well-
watered full vegetation cover (LST = Tv,min and FVC = 1); and point D repre­
sents saturated bare soil (LST = Ts,min and FVC = 0). The red and blue solid lines
are dry and wet edges, respectively. The black dashed lines are isopleths of the
soil moisture availability (M0) varying linearly from minimum value (0) at the
dry edge to maximum value (1) at the wet edge. M0 for the given pixel (e.g. P) is
determined as the ratio of MP to MN (adapted from Leng et al., 2017). (For
interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.) (For interpretation of the references
to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)
where θfc and θwt are field capacity and wilting point, respectively.
In comparison to the traditional spatial information based feature
space, the pixel-to-pixel scheme of the feature space has no strict re­
quirements on underlying surface conditions. Specifically, this pixel-to-
pixel scheme of feature space assumes that a fictitious LST-FVC trape­
zoidal configuration exists for each satellite pixel, thus no longer
depending on the contextual information of spatially distributed scat­
terplots of LST and FVC. Hence, the original demands of full ranges of
variability in SSM and FVC are no longer needed, making the method
capable of deriving SSM at regional scales regardless of the sizes and the
underlying/meteorological conditions of the study areas. However,
several meteorological elements are required to calculate the endpoints
LST. Although a little complicated, the pixel-to-pixel scheme can be
more easily used to map SSM over large areas, particularly with the
background that several global gridded meteorological products are
currently available. In recent studies, based on the MODIS images and
the China Meteorological Administration gridded meteorological prod­
ucts, Leng et al. (2017, 2019) applied the pixel-to-pixel scheme of the
LST-FVC trapezoidal feature space to map SSM over clear-sky pixels for a
province and entire mainland China, respectively.

⎧ ( ) 3.1.3. Basic theories and principal methods for temporal information with
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ Ts,max =
ra Rn,s − G
+ Ta VIS/NIR and TIR synergies
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ Cv Unlike the commonly used instantaneous polar-orbiting satellite
⎪ ( )
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ra Rn,s − G γ VPD data, geostationary satellites have long been neglected in SSM retrieval.
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
Ts,min =
Cv
−
Δ+γ Δ+γ
+ Ta Specifically, geostationary satellites are capable of observing the Earth
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( ) with a much higher temporal resolution (48–96 per day) with the same
⎪
⎪
⎨ ( ) γ 1 + rcx view angle for a given pixel, allowing for the detection of the diurnal
ra Rn,v − G r VPD (13)
⎪ Tv,max = ( a )− ( ) + Ta evolution of land surface variables. Nevertheless, few studies have
⎪ Cv rcx rcx
⎪
⎪
⎪ Δ+γ 1+ Δ+γ 1+ investigated the feasibility of deriving SSM content from the temporal
⎪ ra ra
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( ) information provided by geostationary satellites. Early in the 1980s,
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ( ) γ 1+ r cp Wetzel et al. (1984) implemented a sensitivity test with the data ob­
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
ra Rn,v − G r
( a )−
VPD
( ) + Ta tained from a one-dimensional boundary layer-surface-soil model
⎪ T =
simulation, with the aim of determining the most sensitive Geosta­
⎪ v,min
⎪
⎪ Cv rcp rcp
⎪ Δ+γ 1+ Δ+γ 1+
⎩ ra ra tionary Operational Environmental Satellite-derived physical parame­
ters to SSM content. Their results showed that the mid-morning
where Rn, s and Rn, v are surface net radiation over soil and vegetation differential of surface temperature with respect to absorbed solar radi­
components (W m− 2); Gis soil heat flux (W m− 2); Ta is air temperature ation, is optimally sensitive to SSM. On the basis of the work by Wetzel
(K); Cv is the volumetric heat capacity of air (J ◦ C− 1 m− 3); γ is the et al. (1984), Zhao and Li (2013) conducted a sensitivity study for bare
psychrometric constant (kPa ◦ C− 1); Δ is the slope of saturated vapor soils with the data simulated by the Noah land surface model to inves­
pressure versus air temperature (kPa ◦ C− 1); VPD is the vapor pressure tigate the interrelationship between the evolution of LST and SSM. Fig. 6
deficit of the air (kPa); rais aerodynamic resistance (s m− 1); rcx is the depicts the diurnal temperature cycle parameters investigated in the
canopy resistance associated with nearly complete stomatal closure, study by Zhao and Li (2013). It was found that the LST rising rate
whereas rcp is canopy resistance at the well-watered vegetation normalized by the difference in the Net Surface Shortwave Radiation
condition. (NSSR) during the mid-morning (TN) was the parameter most sensitive
It notes that the theoretical LST at these four endpoints correspond to to SSM for a given atmospheric forcing data set. Subsequently, a simple
the meteorological conditions (e.g. solar radiation, air temperature, multi-linear model to estimate bare SSM with TN and td that describes
wind speed and air humidity parameters) for the given satellite pixel the time of the maximum LST occurs, was proposed as follows:
only, independent of other neighboring pixels. Following the definition
SSM = m1 × TN + m2 × td + m0 (16)
of the pixel-to-pixel feature space, M0 at the given pixel with a coordi­
nate of (FVC, LST) can be expressed as: where TN and td are the LST rising rate normalized by the difference in
MP the NSSR during the mid-morning and the time of the maximum LST
M0 =
MN occurs, respectively, and mi (i = 0, 1, 2) are the model coefficients.
[( ) ]
Tv,max − Ts,max × FVC + Ts,max − LST For the model described above, a basic assumption is that the scatters
= [( )
Tv,max − Ts,max × FVC + Ts,max −
] [( )
Tv,min − Ts,min × FVC + Ts,min
] of LST and NSSR in the mid-morning reveal nearly a linear variation.
Compared with the multi-temporal VIS/NIR and TIR measurements in
(14)
the mid-morning period, Leng et al. (2014) reported a bare SSM retrieval
model by fully using the daytime LST and NSSR. In this study, an

11
Z.-L. Li et al. Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673

320
330 Tmax 315
td 12:00
320 Tmean Sunset
310

LST (K)
LST (K)
305
310 DT
300
Sunrise TR Mid-morning
295 Sunset
300 TN
290
290 Tmin 285
daytime night-time Sunrise
280 280
5 10 15 20 25 30 0 200 400 600 800
Local Solar Time (Hour) 2
NSSR (W/m )
Fig. 6. Sketches of the diurnal evolution of LST (left) and mid-morning variation of LST and NSSR (right), Tmean is the daily mean LST; td is the time when maximum
LST occurs, Tmax and Tmin are daily maximum and minimum LST, DT is the daily amplitude of LST, β is the width of the half-period of the cosine term, TN is the LST
rising rate normalized by the difference in the NSSR during the mid-morning.

elliptical relationship model between diurnal cycles of LST and NSSR
was firstly developed based on the observational phenomena that the
scatters of the daytime LST and NSSR are nearly an ellipse for a cloud-
free day (Fig. 7). Specifically, the only assumption for this ellipse rela­
tionship between diurnal cycles of LST and NSSR was that the width of
the half-period of the cosine term in the diurnal LST cycle and diurnal
NSSR cycle are equal. Subsequently, the four ellipse parameters (ellipse
center horizontal coordinate, ellipse center vertical coordinate, semi-
major axis, and rotation angle) were determined to estimate SSM with
a step-wise linear regression method using the simulated data from the
Common Land Model simulation as follows:
SSM = n1 × x0 + n2 × y0 + n3 × a + n4 × θ + n0
are the model coefficients (m3/m3).
Although the SSM retrieval model proposed by Zhao and Li (2013)
and Leng et al. (2014) are primarily developed from simulated data over
bare soils, these models are quite different from the previous VIS/NIR
and TIR remote sensing methods to estimate SSM because the co­
efficients in these models are not the empirical models linking the SSM
measurements and remotely sensed land surface variables. In a recent
study, the two models were compared over a well-organized soil mois­
ture network in Spain, named REMEDHUS (Leng et al., 2016a). Evalu­
ation using in situ soil moisture measurements and CCI SM product over
72 cloud free days in 2010 indicated that both the models can produce
reasonable SSM estimates, with RMSE approximately 0.050 m3/m3.
(17)

where x0, y0, a, and θ are the ellipse parameters derived from the
elliptical relationship between the diurnal LST and NSSR cycles, i.e., the
ellipse center horizontal coordinate, ellipse center vertical coordinate,
semi-major axis and rotation angle, respectively, and ni (i = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4)
3.1.4. Advantages and drawbacks
Similar to SSM estimation using single VIS/NIR or TIR observation,
SSM retrieval models from a VIS/NIR and TIR synergies are also feasible
only under clear sky conditions. It is also known that the feature space
method can only obtain an SSM proxy (e.g., M0) directly rather than the

Fig. 7. Sketch of the ellipse parameters and elliptical relationship between the diurnal cycles of dimensionless LST and NSSR. x0, y0, a, b, and θ are the ellipse center
horizontal coordinate, ellipse center vertical coordinate, semi-major axis, semi-minor axis, and rotation angle, respectively (adapted from Leng et al., 2016a).

12
Z.-L. Li et al.
quantitative SSM content with unit of m3/m3 (or cm3/cm3). To convert
the proxy to soil volumetric water content, some auxiliary data such as
soil texture or ground SSM measurements are commonly required for
calibration. Except for these, the synergistic VIS/NIR and TIR based
feature space methods require either rigorous meteorological/underly­
ing surfaces or several known meteorological elements, which can be a
limitation for practically applying the methods over the data-limited
regions. Nevertheless, the feature space method is presently the most
popular algorithm combining VIS/NIR and TIR observations for esti­
mating SSM at present. Due to their simplicity and convenience for use,
the feature space methods have been widely implemented to estimate
SSM with an RMSE approximately 0.05 m3/m3 via remotely sensed data
at various spatial scales (Petropoulos et al., 2009). The temporal
information-based methods have at least two advantages compared to
traditional methods developed from single VIS/NIR or TIR observations.
The one is the feasibility of estimating SSM directly without establishing
empirical relationships between SSM measurements and remotely
sensed proxies of SSM and the other is the capacity for obtaining
quantitative soil volumetric water content without knowledge of soil
texture. Nevertheless, the models are presently primarily developed
using simulated data, which is far from the actual applications with
satellite images to map regional SSM content. Moreover, a major
drawback of the models is that the coefficients rely on meteorological
conditions, leading to difficulties in applications over large areas. One
essential challenge to make the models practical for routine use with
geostationary satellite data is to develop appropriate methods for
obtaining the model coefficients more conveniently. An approach to
determine the model coefficients directly using limited meteorological
parameters rather than via the complicated simulation process was re­
ported in a recent study by Leng et al. (2016b), allowing for a significant
decrease in the dependence of the model coefficients on meteorological
measurements.
3.1.5. Future research directions
To obtain better SSM, further efforts for estimating SSM from the
synergistic use of VIS/NIR and TIR observations can focus on the
following two aspects: Firstly, to develop methods for obtaining soil
volumetric water content without the knowledge of soil properties, and
secondly, to estimate all-weather SSM at fine spatial resolutions.
Within the remote sensing discipline, SSM is widely recognized as a
variable that cannot be obtained directly from remotely sensed mea­
surements. Until now, although many algorithms have been proposed to
estimate SSM, it should be noted that most of the currently available
algorithms are based on an indirect manner. It is known that most
commonly used VIS/NIR and TIR instruments can satisfy the re­
quirements with respect to fine spatial scales for various applications.
However, no VIS/NIR and TIR-based SSM products are available for use
at present. Except for the characteristic that susceptible by clouds,
another critical explanation for this is that most traditional VIS/NIR and
TIR-based SSM retrieval algorithms primarily use polar-orbit satellite-
derived spatial images or spectral information, which can only obtain a
direct proxy (or index) of SSM. For example, the widely used TI or ATI is
not the quantitative SSM content, and a large amount of ground SSM
measurements are theoretically required to develop empirical relation­
ships between TI (or ATI) and ground measurements for regional SSM
retrieval. Specifically, these coefficients of the empirical relationships
are temporally variable and must be calibrated with each scene of
image, making it difficult, in theory, to generate continuous SSM dataset
for routine applications. Furthermore, SSM and soil properties are usu­
ally coupled in traditional retrieval algorithms. For example, the
commonly used universal “triangle method” can only obtain the M0,
which is defined as the ratio of volumetric water content to field ca­
pacity (Carlson, 2007). In addition, the empirical coefficients of the
relationships between TI (or ATI) and SSM content also vary with soil
texture (Lu et al., 2009; Matsushima et al., 2012). Knowledge of un­
derlying soil properties is necessary to obtain SSM when using most of
13
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
the currently available VIS/NIR and TIR-based SSM retrieval algorithms.
Although a number of digital soil texture data such as DSMW, HWSD and
the SoilGrids250m of the ISRIC, have been released for public uses,
especially as essential input for land surface/hydrological modeling and
SSM retrieval algorithms over large spatial scale, these digital soil
texture data are generally obtained from limited ground soil samples
worldwide and other environmental covariates via predication models.
As a consequence, most of the currently available digital soil texture
data are more feasible for applications over large scale, which can also
explain the reason for the increasing investigations of deriving soil
texture information using optical/radar observations at regional,
watershed or even field scales as stated in previous sections. From this
perspective, it is critical to make soil volumetric water content (rather
than a proxy) retrieval independent of soil texture information. A
promising approach towards this target is to introduce additional in­
formation for SSM retrieval. An example of this can be referred to the
aforementioned temporal information-based SSM retrieval algorithms
presented in Eqs. (16) and (17). Specifically, the temporal information-
based algorithms are proven to be independent of soil texture, which
suggests significant potential to obtain volumetric water content
without the knowledge of soil texture in future developments.
It is known that VIS/NIR and TIR signals are vulnerable to cloud
interruption, which can lead to significant data gaps for deriving SSM.
However, spatially complete SSM datasets are commonly required in
various applications. Otherwise, although microwave can penetrate
clouds and provide continuous SSM products in theory, several critical
issues, such as the effects of radio frequency interference (RFI) and the
limitations of the current algorithms under a certain conditions, make it
difficult to obtain all-weather SSM products (Le Vine and Matthaeis,
2014; Xiao et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2017). Moreover, the inherent
coarse spatial resolution (25–50 km) of most currently available passive
microwave missions is insufficient for practical applications at water­
shed or regional scales, where a fine spatial resolution of 1–10 km is
commonly required for various studies (Crow et al., 2012; Peng et al.,
2017). Hence, it is difficult to obtain all-weather SSM from satellite data
with most of the currently available algorithms. In a recent study, Leng
et al. (2017) proposed a practical approach for deriving all-weather SSM
using combined satellite and gridded meteorological products. In this
approach, SSM over clear-sky pixels are estimated from a pixel-to-pixel
scheme of the LST-FVC trapezoid scheme and SSM over cloudy pixel are
determined from the meteorological data-derived surface and aero­
dynamic resistances. Fig. 8 depicts the comparison of SSM retrieval from
traditional LST-FVC trapezoidal method and all-weather retrieval
scheme over the Henan province, China, respectively. An overall accu­
racy of approximately 0.060 m3/m3 and 0.080 m3/m3 can be found for
clear-sky pixels and cloudy pixels, respectively. It is evident that the
latter method can fill the gaps remaining by the VIS/NIR and TIR
method, providing an opportunity to derive spatially complete SM data.
Another recent study also used satellite data and meteorological prod­
ucts to obtain spatially completed SSM at the regional scale. However,
random forest models, rather than physics-based methods, were
implemented to obtain SSM at higher spatial resolutions (Long et al.,
2019). Although SSM estimation over cloudy pixels exhibits lower ac­
curacy than that over clear-sky pixels, these approaches reveal signifi­
cant potential to derive all-weather SSM using currently available
satellite images and meteorological products at a regional or global scale
at fine spatial resolutions. Nevertheless, meteorological data at the sat­
ellite overpassing time is needed for this approach. Moreover, hydraulic
parameters that are difficult to determine over large heterogeneous
areas, are also required to obtain volumetric SSM content. This method,
however, provides a feasible way to obtain all-weather SSM that is
critically needed in various practical applications. Following these in­
vestigations, future VIS/NIR and TIR synergies algorithms can focus on
all-weather SSM estimation, providing that spatially complete LST and
VI can be determined nowadays. However, a great challenge involved in
obtaining all-weather SSM from the perspective of VIS/NIR and TIR
Z.-L. Li et al.
Fig. 8. SSM derived from the LST-FVC trapezoidal method (a) and the all-weather retrieval (b), the unit of the SSM is m3/m3 (adapted from Leng et al., 2017).
synergies is that actual LST and VI under cloudy pixels should be ac­
quired in advance.
Furthermore, several recent studies have investigated the physical
explanation of the LST-FVC trapezoidal configuration (Sun, 2016; Tang
and Li, 2017). A key issue on the LST-FVC trapezoidal configuration is
that whether SSM within surface and root-zone layers should vary
synchronously or asynchronously. A significant difference of the
asynchronous-assumed trapezoid than the synchronous-assumed one is
that a critical boundary divides the synchronous-assumed trapezoid into
two triangles, and the critical boundary is to determine whether the
root-zone layer begins to be water-stressed (Fig. 9). However, currently
available studies refer to evapotranspiration retrieval only (Jiang et al.,
2019; Liao et al., 2020). It is obvious that different SSM variation can
significantly lead to different SSM retrievals following the trapezoidal
configurations as shown in Fig. 9 where the ratio of MP to MN is totally
different for the synchronous-assumed and asynchronous-assumed
trapezoidal space. Hence, future investigations can also focus on the
physical explanation of the LST-FVC for improving the accuracy of SSM
retrieval.
3.2. VIS/NIR and microwave synergies
3.2.1. Basic theories and principal methods for VIS/NIR and active
microwave synergies
For bare or sparsely vegetated surfaces, a number of empirical, semi-
empirical and physical methods have been developed to link radar
14
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
backscattering coefficients and SSM according to the previous section.
However, most of the surfaces are covered to some extent by vegetation
in actual applications. The dielectric properties and the physical struc­
tures of vegetation are two main factors affecting radar backscattering or
attenuation. Specifically, the stalks, branches and trunks can contribute
to direct backscattering, trunk-ground double scattering and volume
scattering (Ulaby et al., 1982). The combination of radar and VIS/NIR
remote sensing to estimate SSM is an intensely discussed topic in recent
studies (Álvarez-Mozos et al., 2006; Notarnicola et al., 2006; Kumar
et al., 2015, Xing et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020a, 2020b). A key
advantage from the synergistic use of radar with VIS/NIR data specif­
ically, is that it allows for the minimization of vegetation biomass and
surface roughness effects on the radar backscatter (Petropoulos et al.,
2015).
Coupling a radar vegetation model with a soil backscattering model
allows for the retrieval of SSM under vegetated canopies and has been
widely applied to a variety of crop and vegetation types (De Roo et al.,
2001; Della Vecchia et al., 2008; Lin et al., 2009; Balenzano et al., 2011;
Wu et al., 2020). The Water-Cloud model (Attema and Ulaby, 1978) and
the MIMICS model (Ulaby et al., 1990) are two typical radar vegetation
models that are currently widely used. By assuming that vegetation
canopy is a cloud containing water droplets randomly distributed within
the canopy, the Water-Cloud model takes the total σ as a function of
SSM, Vegetation Water Content (VWC), and plant height. Specifically,
the Water-Cloud model adopted a simplified strategy to obtain the total
σ without the consideration of multiple scattering between canopy and
Fig. 9. A sketch of the LST-FVC trapezoid
configuration with two assumptions on SSM
variation (adapted from Liao et al., 2020).
With regarding to Fig. 5 for the virtual
feature space, point A, B, C, and D represent
the conditions of dry bare soil, fully vege­
tated surface with zero water availability,
well-watered full vegetation cover, and
wettest bare soil, respectively. The dotted
lines are isopleths of M0. Specially, the black
dashed line linking point A and C in the
asynchronous-assumed trapezoid is a critical
boundary that determines whether the root-
zone layer begins to be water-stressed.
Namely, in the asynchronous-assumed trap­
ezoid, the SSM should be dried up before the
root-zone layer to be water-stressed, whereas
moisture in both surface and root-zone layer
vary synchronously.
Z.-L. Li et al.
soil. The Water-Cloud model has been modified several times since its
first version in 1978. The latest update developed by Kweon and Oh
(2015), has several new parameters such as average and standard de­
viation of leaf angle distribution and has been added into the Water-
Cloud model to accurately estimate the backscattering coefficients
with the angular effect of scattering particles in a vegetation canopy. The
Water-Cloud model retains only the single scattering from vegetation
and soil, so it may misrepresent backscatter under dense vegetation
where vegetation-soil multiple scattering has a strong contribution to
the total backscatter coefficient (Joseph et al., 2008; Pierdicca et al.,
2010). The Michigan Microwave Canopy Scattering (MIMICS) model is
originally developed for characterizing forest backscattering. Later
studies have extended the model to other common situations such as
bare soils, natural vegetation and crops. Compared to the Water-Cloud
model, the MIMICS model is more complicated due to the consider­
ation of several different types of scatters. The RTE used in the MIMICS
model is suitable for medium type vegetation, where scatters have
discrete configurations and dielectric constants much larger than that of
the air (Touré et al., 1994). However, because numerous complicated
parameters are required, the MIMICS model is generally difficult to
apply (Dobson et al., 1992).
For almost all the radar vegetation models, the VWC is the most
commonly used parameter to quantify the effects of vegetation on radar
backscatters. The physical mechanism is that VWC directly relates to the
depth of the radar penetration, and therefore impacts the quality of SSM
return. To obtain the VWC, VIS/NIR measurements-derived indices,
such as the NDVI, Leaf Area Index (LAI) and the Normalized Difference
Water Index (NDWI), are commonly used to make empirical regression
with in-situ data for VWC inversion (Jackson et al., 2004; Notarnicola
et al., 2006; Saradjian and Hosseini, 2011; Chai et al., 2015; Bao et al.,
2018; Ma et al., 2019). In summary, to obtain SSM over vegetated areas,
firstly, the VIS/NIR measurements are used to calculate the VWC as
follows:
VWC = f (ρi ) (18)
Subsequently, the VWC is used to eliminate the effects of vegetation
on radar backscatter coefficients (σ), and SSM can be finally derived as
follows:
SSM = f (σ, VWC) (19)
Except for the physical models, neural network technique has also
been applied to obtain SSM from the synergistic use of VIS/NIR and SAR
data. For such methods, the neural networks (NNs) are commonly
trained by VIS/NIR derived NDVI, SAR derived σ and several other pa­
rameters. A typical study for this was reported by El Hajj et al. (2017)
who developed an operational approach to map SSM over agricultural
regions with high spatial resolution from the synergistic use of Sentinel-
1 SAR data and Sentinel-2 NDVI images. Specifically, this approach was
further conducted to produce the SM product currently available for
several regions in Europe as pre-operational product (https://www.thei
a-land.fr/en/product/soil-moisture-with-very-high-spatial-resolution/).
3.2.2. Basic theories and principal methods for VIS/NIR and passive
microwave synergies
Although passive microwave data are currently widely used to pro­
vide global SSM datasets, there are still limitations from the existence of
the vegetation cover which is opaque and blocks the reception of passive
microwave signals from soil (Burke and Simmonds, 2001; Vittucci et al.,
2016). Similar to methods based on the synergetic use of VIS/NIR and
active data, VIS/NIR measurements are also implemented to primarily
eliminate the effects of vegetation on SSM retrieval from passive data
over vegetated areas. Compared to SSM estimation over bare soils, the
retrieval of SSM in vegetation covered areas is more complicated.
For the aforementioned physical baseline of τ-ω model, vegetation is
represented as a single-scattering layer above a rough soil, and the τ-ω
model neglects multiple scattering effects. For example, based on the
15
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
τ–ω model, the subsequent developed L-band Microwave Emission of the
Biosphere model assumes that the vegetation contribution to the mi­
crowave signal can be corrected by the τ and ω (Mo et al., 1982;
Wigneron et al., 2007). Specifically, both variables are used to param­
eterize the vegetation attenuation properties and the scattering effects
within the canopy. In the τ-ω or heterogenic model, τ is normally
assumed to be proportional to VWC. Moreover, the VIS/NIR
measurements-derived vegetation properties such as NDVI or NDWI are
commonly used to parameterize VWC (Jackson et al., 2004; Burke and
Simmonds, 2001; Bindlish et al., 2003; Hasan et al., 2014; Grant et al.,
2016; Chaubell et al., 2020). It notes that nearly all these methods to link
τ and VIS/NIR measurements are currently through empirical methods.
Some studies show that densely vegetated regions with more SSM and
VWC reveal a smaller diurnal microwave brightness temperature vari­
ation than other regions (Aires et al., 2004; Norouzi et al., 2012), indi­
cating that VWC can be potentially derived from diurnal microwave-
derived Tb. Because canopy structure reveals a strong relationship
with bands used for SSM retrieval, information on vegetation type will
most likely be necessary for global applications of the τ-ω model (Le Vine
and Karam, 1996; Van de Griend and Wigneron, 2004). Depending on
the available polarization/frequency channels or reviewing angles, the
single channel algorithm and multi-channel algorithm are presently
available. The former algorithm can retrieve only SSM with an objective
of minimizing the error between observed and modeled Tb in the hori­
zontal or the vertical polarization. However, some ancillary data and
reasonable assumptions are required to determine the necessary pa­
rameters such as surface temperature, VOD and surface roughness
required in the algorithm. A typical application of the single channel
algorithm is that used for AMSR-E data to produce SSM product where
NDVI monthly climatology derived using the AVHRR observations from
the 1981–1999 time period was used to provide VWC estimates (Jack­
son, 1993; Mladenova et al., 2014). Moreover, the single channel algo­
rithm is also taken as the SMAP baseline algorithm where NDVI monthly
climatology is generated from MODIS within a long period. Due to the
capability of measuring multi frequency/angular dual polarization Tb
for most of the currently available microwave sensors, the multi-channel
algorithm can provide more observations for simultaneously retrieving
additional parameters along with SSM. However, an initial guess for the
unknown VOD derived from VIS/NIR based NDVI climatology should
also be provided for these algorithms (Owe et al., 2008; Entekhabi et al.,
2010; Pan et al., 2014; Chaubell et al., 2020; Wigneron et al., 2018;
Fernandez-Moran et al., 2017). For an instance, similar to the single
channel algorithm, the SMAP baseline dual channel algorithm also re­
quires MODIS NDVI derived VWC as an initial guess in the optimization
process to obtain final SSM and VOD simultaneously, whereas the
MODIS LAI is used in the SMOS SSM algorithm to obtain SSM and VOD
simultaneously (Kerr et al., 2012).
In summary, the process of estimating SSM from the combination of
VIS/NIR and passive measurements can be cataloged into two steps. The
first step is to obtain vegetation parameters (i.e., τ or VWC) from VIS/
NIR measurements (spectral reflectance based NDVI or LAI) as follows:
τ or VWC = f (ρi ) (20)
Secondly, with the knowledge of τor VWC, SSM over vegetated areas
can be derived from passive microwave-derived Tb as follows:
SSM = f (Tb , τ or VWC) (21)
3.2.3. Advantages and drawbacks
Generally, the combination of VIS/NIR and microwave data for SSM
estimation is primarily focused on the determination of the essential
vegetation parameters (τ or VWC) from VIS/NIR measurements. These
vegetation parameters can help to eliminate the effects of vegetation on
SSM retrieval from microwave data over vegetated areas, which is the
advantage to obtain SSM by VIS/NIR and microwave synergies over
such underlying surfaces. A disadvantage of the combination of
Z.-L. Li et al.
microwave and VIS/NIR data for SSM retrieval is that the VIS/NIR data
is usually limited by clouds and daytime conditions, resulting in failures
of VWC retrieval. Moreover, it is also difficult to synchronously obtain
radar and VIS/NIR data. The inconsistency between radar and VIS/NIR
data acquisition will create uncertainties for SSM retrievals. To this end,
some studies have attempted to estimate VWC by radar data (De Roo
et al., 2001; Gherboudj et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2013; Ma et al., 2017;
Vermunt et al., 2020). In addition, the derivations for VWC are usually
based on the empirical relationship, which is not unique but has
different formulas. Moreover, the empirical relationship also shows
some sensitivity with the spatial resolution change of the passive mi­
crowave data, land cover classes, and the accuracy of estimating vege­
tation parameters from VIS/NIR remote sensing.
3.2.4. Future research directions
Currently, a number of algorithms have been implemented to obtain
SSM products from the combination of primarily passive microwave,
and VIS/NIR observations. Among these algorithms, the VIS/NIR data
are commonly used to provide vegetation status for SSM estimations. A
number of studies have demonstrated that combining multi-source data,
including satellite observations, ground survey/measurements and
reanalysis products, or implementing these multi-source data into
physics-based models, can significantly improve the determination of
land surface variables (Crow et al., 2017). For example, combining
multi-satellite (primarily including the Landsat) and land surface in­
formation, the 30 m GlobeLand data developed by the National Geo­
matics Center of China achieved an overall classification accuracy of
over 80%, which is significantly higher than most of the existing auto­
mated classification methods (Chen et al., 2015). Normally, the high-
accuracy land cover type can help to better obtain SSM-related vari­
ables such as LST and NDVI and hence, SSM retrieval can benefit from
the multi-source data combination. As for the VIS/NIR and microwave
synergies for SSM retrieval, VWC is a key parameters to improve the
accuracy of SSM retrieval. Future investigations can focus on two as­
pects. The one is to reconstruct the temporally continuous VWC datasets
from VIS/NIR observations, thus to close or narrow the gap between the
procurability of VWC and synchronous microwave data. The other is to
develop more practical methods for obtaining VWC from physical basis,
since most of the currently available algorithms are based on empirical
relationships. Specifically, it reveals potential to obtain temporally
continuous VWC from the combined use of VIS/NIR and radar data via
data fusion process, since both the two data have high spatial resolution
and a few studies have investigated the feasibility for deriving VWC from
radar data (Gherboudj et al., 2011; Ma et al., 2017; Vermunt et al.,
2020).
3.3. TIR and microwave synergies
3.3.1. Basic theories and principal methods for TIR and active microwave
synergies
In theory, both TIR and active missions possess fine spatial resolu­
tions, which can contribute to better SSM estimation because scale
mismatch of the two datasets probably do not exist. However, to the best
of our knowledge, thus far, only a few studies have investigated SSM
retrieval from the combined use of TIR and active microwave mea­
surements. In a recent study, Amazirh et al. (2018) proposed a new
approach to retrieval SSM from the Sentinel-1-derived backscatter and
Landsat-7/8 thermal data-derived SSM proxy named Soil Evaporative
Efficiency (SEE). In their approach, the SEE was used to calibrate the
normalized backscatter coefficient over a two year agricultural season.
Evaluation against in-situ measurements revealed that combining TIR
and active microwave measurements can obtain better SSM estimates
than using single active microwave data. Although this method is pri­
marily based on bare soils, it does provide an example for obtaining SSM
from the synergetic use of TIR and active microwave data.
16
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
3.3.2. Basic theories and principal methods for TIR and passive microwave
synergies
Both TIR and passive microwave bands sense the emitted energy
from the Earth’s surface. The TIR and passive microwave reveal similar
characteristics for SSM retrieval. For example, the TIR-derived LST and
passive microwave-derived Tb normally decreases with increasing SSM
over bare soils. Specifically, with the assumption that TIR-based LST
equals to passive microwave-based LST, e can be derived from the
combination of TIR-based LST and microwave-based Tb as follows:
Tb
e= (22)
LST
Subsequently, SSM can be written as a function to e as follows:
SSM = f (e) (23)
It is clear that e derived from TIR and passive microwave measure­
ments are beneficial to obtaining SSM, particularly over bare soils.
However, methods to directly retrieve SSM from the synergetic use of
TIR and passive microwave are rare at present. Two primary explana­
tions could be the spatial mismatch and the different penetration ability
between TIR and passive microwave emissions, which probably make it
difficult to operate in actual applications.
To the best of our knowledge, most of the currently available
methods for combining TIR and passive microwave missions reveal an
indirect way to contribute to SSM estimation. For the different sensing
depths of TIR and passive microwave missions, the data assimilation
approach provides the possibility of improving the accuracy of SSM
estimates at different soil layers (Hain et al., 2012). Considering the
advantages of different sensing depth of microwave and TIR missions, a
recent study was proposed to obtain SM profiles via the principle of
maximum entropy by coupling passive microwave SSM and TIR-based
SSM proxy (Mishra et al., 2018). With respect to the different sensing
availabilities, some researchers have attempted to obtain all-weather
LST from the combination of TIR and passive microwave missions
(Duan et al., 2017). The derived all-weather LST can be used theoreti­
cally, to obtain SSM at finer spatial resolutions over all-sky conditions,
indicating a certain advantage over using either the single TIR or passive
microwave for SSM retrieval. A study by Piles et al. (2016) investigated a
synergistic technique from the passive microwave and thermal obser­
vations to enhance the spatiotemporal SSM mapping. Specifically, the
temporal information from the geostationary satellite images can pro­
vide a temporal average daytime SSM product from the instantaneous
fine-scale (~3 km) SSM estimates acquired every 15 min, allowing for
higher coverage in the presence of clouds and representativeness. In a
more recent study, Leng et al. (2019) reported a method to map all-
weather SSM from the combination of TIR and passive microwave
data. In this method, SSM over clear-sky pixels are determined from a
TIR-based retrieval algorithm, whereas SSM over cloudy pixels are
derived from a disaggregation of coarse passive microwave based-SSM
products (Fig. 10). For the different spatial scales of TIR and passive
microwave, a number of researchers have investigated the possibility of
downscaling the coarse spatial resolution microwave-based SSM prod­
ucts into finer resolution datasets by TIR (or combing both VIS/NIR and
TIR) observations (Peng et al., 2017).
3.3.3. Advantages and drawbacks
In general, microwave observations can penetrate through most
cloud cover and provide almost daily coverage of land surface, while TIR
is obtainable at lower temporal frequencies because it is not possible in
the presence of cloud cover, a number of studies have highlighted the
feasibility of obtaining SSM with either higher spatial resolution of
improved spatial coverages, especially for the widely used downscaling
procedure to obtain SSM at high spatial resolution from synergetic use of
TIR and microwave-based SSM products. Nevertheless, there are at least
two drawbacks to estimate SSM from the TIR and passive microwave
synergies. The one is that TIR and passive microwave reveal different
Z.-L. Li et al.
Fig. 10. All-weather SSM generated by TIR and passive microwave synergies (a), and assimilated SSM product (b) on August 1, 2017 (adapted from Leng
et al., 2019).
sensing depths. Commonly, TIR can be used to define a robust proxy for
root-zone (top 1 m of the soil column) SM (Crow et al., 2008), while
passive microwave-based SSM retrievals are generally considered at a
shallow surface (top 1–5 cm of the soil column). Hence, it is difficult to
determine the physical definition for a pixel with SSM retrieval from TIR
and passive microwave synergies. The other is that TIR and passive
microwave reveal different spatial scales. In general, due to the objective
principle for the passive satellite antennae to collect surface emitted
energy at long wavelengths, the passive microwave data commonly
reveal coarse spatial resolution (≥ 25 km), whereas the TIR observations
are potentially obtainable at much finer spatial resolutions (~100 m for
polar orbiting imagers to ~5 km for geostationary imagers). Hence,
estimation of SSM from the synergetic use of TIR and passive microwave
observations should normally face a downscaling procedure either for
passive microwave-derived Tb or SSM. However, most of the currently
available downscaling methods still have great uncertainties in physical
explanation, data requirement and final accuracy (Peng et al., 2017).
3.3.4. Future research directions
In the past decades, SSM retrieval from combined TIR and passive
microwave data generally did not attract much attention. Although
significant progress has been made, there are several challenges that
need to be addressed in the future. A major challenge is the physical
explanation of the depth for the estimated SSM from the combined use of
TIR and passive microwave, because TIR and passive microwave mis­
sions characterize different sensing depths. The fundamental solution
for this is to perform the retrieval of the SM profile from the TIR and
passive microwave synergy or to deeply investigate the inner connection
between SM from different layers, since TIR can reveal root-zone SM at
1 m, whereas microwave-based SSM is generally at a top surface layer at
approximately 5 cm. Another challenge is the spatial scale mismatch
between TIR and passive microwave. Although a number of researchers
have investigated the possibility of downscaling coarse spatial resolu­
tion microwave data to fine scales as TIR images, assessments of the
results should be further explored. It notes that downscaling methods
have been widely used to obtain higher spatial resolution SSM from
coarse SSM data, it is better regarded as a “technical process” to obtain
target SSM data from existing SSM products, rather than a “retrieval
method” to estimate SSM from satellite-derived direct observations. In
this regard, it is promising that the TIR and active microwave synergies
can help to directly retrieve all-weather SM at fine spatial resolution in
theory, given that both TIR and active microwave have fine spatial
resolution. Although few studies have investigated the TIR and active
17
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
microwave synergies for estimating SSM, following the study by Ama­
zirh et al. (2018), future research is encouraged to continue to focus on
the connections between TIR-based SSM proxies and SAR-derived
backscatter.
4. Summary and outlook
Satellite remote sensing observations provide a unique opportunity
to obtain spatiotemporal SSM at regional or global scales. Accurately
acquiring SSM content at the regional or global scale is crucial to a
number of theoretical research and practical applications such as water
cycle and surface energy balance, global change study, agriculture
management, weather forecasting and drought monitoring. In general,
significant progress on either theoretical basis or data products for sat­
ellite SSM has been achieved in recent decades. Specifically, a number of
satellite-based global SSM products have been developed and are freely
accessible for applications in many domains associated with the terres­
trial system. This has greatly strengthened the understanding of the
interactions between atmosphere and the Earth through the flow of
water, energy and carbon. Following the present review, we would like
to summary the state-of-art and outlook of satellite SSM retrieval as
follows:
(1) Currently, VIS/NIR, TIR and microwave are three main data
sources for SSM estimation, which can contribute to SSM
retrieval algorithms from different perspectives. In particular,
several satellites dedicated for global SSM monitoring with mi­
crowave bands, have been successfully launched, and almost all
the currently available operational SSM products are derived
from microwave observations. In the contrast, a major disad­
vantage of VIS/NIR and TIR data is their inherent weakness that
easily to be affected by clouds, which is not suitable for the
generation of operational SSM products in regional or global
scales. Nevertheless, an increasing number of literatures have
been focused on the spatiotemporally reconstruction of the key
parameters (e.g. TIR-based LST and VIS/NIR-based vegetation
properties) for SSM retrieval over the gaps remaining by clouds in
recent years. In general, these spatially completed VIS/NIR and
TIR parameters can not only move the SSM retrieval towards
operational stage in future developments, but also capable of
providing more reliable inputs with the VIS/NIR, TIR and mi­
crowave synergy methods. From this perspective, SSM retrieval
from multi-band synergy should be the mainstream in future.
Z.-L. Li et al.
(2) Up to present, considerable achievements have been made in LST
or SSM retrievals from passive microwave observations. How­
ever, an unavoidable objective fact is that these two parameters
are mutual dependent, which is difficult to make the retrieval
independent of auxiliary data. As for the passive microwave LST
retrieval, the surface emissivity is commonly assumed to be a
constant or determined from SSM and auxiliary information such
as soil texture and surface roughness, whereas LST and the
aforementioned auxiliary information are also required to obtain
SSM from most of the currently available passive microwave-
based algorithms. Due to this mutual dependence and the diffi­
culties for the obtaining of accurate auxiliary information, the
retrieval accuracy has been greatly constrained. Because SSM
retrieval from microwave (especially passive microwave) is still
dominant at present and in near future. It is essential to develop
new algorithms to obtain better SSM estimates from microwave
measurements. A promising solution towards this challenge could
be the simultaneous retrieval of LST and SSM from passive mi­
crowave observations. The primary motivation behind the
simultaneous retrieval is to make the number of unknown pa­
rameters more close to or fewer than the number of equations in
the retrieval process, thus to solve the “ill-posed” retrieval
problem and make the retrieval independent of auxiliary
information.
(3) A well-known target accuracy with unbiased RMSE of 0.04 m3/
m3 has been criticized by research communities and is still used
nowadays. However, it is a non-representative target for different
soil surface conditions. In theory, most of the SSM algorithms
reveal different levels of retrieval accuracy over dry and wet soil
surfaces, due to the non-linear variation of SSM to remotely
sensed parameters used for SSM retrieval within different SSM
sections. Moreover, it should be noted that different soil textures
generally exhibit different soil water holding capacities, making
it unreasonable to evaluate the performance of SSM retrieval over
different soil textures using a uniform target accuracy. Except for
these, although most of the currently available SSM retrieval
methods or products are reported to have already achieved or
approached the aforementioned target accuracy, most of the
validation activities of satellite SSM data are carried out over
regions or periods with sparse to moderate vegetation coverage.
Because vegetation is commonly recognized as a disturbance
term for separating soil signals from satellite data with most of
the commonly used wavelengths for SSM retrieval, accurate SSM
retrieval over dense vegetation conditions is still a huge challenge
in remote sensing community. As a consequence, it is suggested
that distinguished target accuracies should be determined for
different underlying surface conditions. In particular, three
essential surface factors, namely the surface moisture status (e.g.
dry/wet and intermediate moisture soils), soil texture (e.g. clay,
loam or sand) and vegetation coverage (e.g. sparse/dense and
intermediate vegetation coverage), should be seriously consid­
ered to determine the distinguished target accuracies for different
situations. Except for these, the requirements of actual applica­
tions with satellite SSM data should also be taken into account
when determining the target accuracy of satellite SSM retrieval.
(4) Although a number of algorithms based on different wavelengths
have been proposed to obtain SSM estimates at present, obvious
gaps from other perspectives such as temporal resolution, spatial
coverages, length of record and physical explanations remain
apart from the consideration of retrieval accuracy, indicating that
it still has unsolved difficulties to close the gaps between the
producers and users of satellite SSM data. Among these gaps, the
physical explanations of sensing depth for SSM retrieval has been
less discussed. Although ground in-situ SSM measurements with a
fixed depth of 5 cm are frequently used to validate remotely
sensed SSM, VIS/NIR and microwave can reflect SSM with only a
18
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
few millimeters and a few centimeters, respectively. Moreover,
the sensing depth of microwave generally varies with soil surface
status, mostly depending on SSM content within the soil column
and frequencies used for detecting SSM. A critical contradiction
between satellite-derived SSM and the requirements of spatially
distributed SSM by most of the land surface/hydrological
modeling is that the latter should be with fixed layers. Apart from
the remotely sensed SSM with shallow and varying depths, SM
content within much deeper layers is more desired for various
applications, especially in most of the agricultural activities
where SM within the root-zone layer is required. Although P-
band radar is capable of estimating subsurface SM profile with
deeper layer in theory, the accuracy of SM retrievals generally
decreases as depth increases. From the perspective of sensing
depth, it is difficult to determine an explicit depth for SSM
retrieval day-to-day or pixel-to-pixel, and none of the currently
available satellite SSM estimates can completely satisfy the re­
quirements by actual applications, let alone other limitations
such as the coarse spatial resolution of passive microwave mis­
sions, low temporal interval of active microwaves data and the
impacts of clouds on the continuous of VIS/NIR and TIR images.
Because it is an inherent characteristic of electromagnetic radi­
ation, there is no good way at present to solve the contradiction of
sensing depth between the producers and users of satellite SSM
data, at least at the stage of SSM retrieval algorithm de­
velopments. However, several post-processing steps such as the
assimilation technology and the entropy theory, are beneficial to
obtain more utility SSM data.
(5) An inevitable issue of satellite SSM retrieval is the use of auxiliary
data. Two typical auxiliary data widely used in either VIR/NIR,
TIR or microwave based algorithms are meteorological elements
(e.g. air temperature, solar radiation and relative humidity) and
soil texture. Specifically, meteorological elements are commonly
employed to provide essential boundary conditions for SSM
retrieval, whereas soil texture is used to derive soil hydraulic
properties that normally coupled with volumetric water content.
For the meteorological elements, although a number of algo­
rithms have been developed to estimate these elements, most of
the present approaches are only feasible over clear-sky condi­
tions, and the retrieval accuracies are significantly lower than
that obtained from in-situ measurements. With regard to soil
texture, although several digital soil map data have been pro­
posed and used in recent decades, it should be noted that most of
the applications are implemented over large spatial scales such as
the generation of operational microwave SSM products and land
surface/hydrological modeling and assimilation. In watershed or
filed scales, detailed soil texture information commonly derived
from VIS/NIR or SAR data. Another successful attempt to this is
the use of geostationary satellite-derived temporal information of
land surface parameters to estimate SSM as stated earlier in
previous sections. It is evident that the temporal information can
remove the effects of soil texture on SSM retrieval, making it
capable of obtaining soil volumetric water content directly
without the knowledge of underlying soil texture distribution.
Hence, the issue of auxiliary data for SSM retrieval can be
addressed from two aspects. The one is to develop more accurate
algorithms for the determination of auxiliary data; the other is to
make SSM retrieval algorithms independent of auxiliary data or
only relying on a few auxiliary data that can be accurately ob­
tained from satellite observations.
(6) It notes that the methods described in this review article are
primarily for SSM. However, an increasing number of in­
vestigations have been proposed to estimate root-zone SM, since
the volume of soil considered of interest for monitoring and
forecast applications is much deeper. A main approach for this
purpose is to estimate root-zone SM from satellite SSM. For an
Z.-L. Li et al.
example, several mainstream microwave missions such as the
ASCAT, SMOS and SMAP, are producing root-zone SM datasets
nowadays through land surface model assimilation where their
SSM products are provided as an essential input. Other methods
such as the SWI derived from exponential filter and the analytical
relationship between root-zone SM and SSM, have also high­
lighted the feasibility of inferring root-zone SM from satellite SSM
data. Apart from the indirect approaches that using SSM to derive
root-zone SM, the P-band SAR has the ability to penetrate much
deeper depth due to its longer wavelength, thus is widely
recognized as a direct and promising way to obtain root-zone SM.
Although present studies primarily focus on airborne P-band
SAR, the upcoming Biomass mission will become the first P-band
SAR satellite, which is expected to obtain root-zone SM with
better geographical and/or temporal coverage. In addition, the
SigNals of Opportunity: P-band Investigation (SNoOPI) CubeSat
mission that scheduled in 2021, will carry a P-band reflectometry
for measuring root-zone SM from space. All these achievements
indicate that estimation of root-zone SM from satellite data can be
an attractive research direction in future. However, it is note­
worthy that great challenges such as the accuracy of satellite
SSM, the underground soil texture distribution, and the effects of
RFI on P-band measurements, still exist to obtain root-zone SM at
present. As a consequence, obtaining more accurate SSM should
be primarily addressed, since it is the first step for most of the
approaches currently available. Furthermore, it is also encour­
aged to develop more feasible methods for better correcting the
effects by RFI and other factors in P-band measurements.
(7) To overcome the limitations of current methods and to signifi­
cantly improve SSM estimations, it is necessary to explore new
ideas and make new headways in remote sensing. In this review
article, several new concepts and algorithms such as SSM
retrieval with geostationary satellite-derived temporal informa­
tion of land surface parameters, all-weather SSM retrieval and
asynchronous-assumed feature space that rarely involved in
previous SSM review articles, have been detailed described. It is
noteworthy that these new concepts and algorithms make SSM
retrieval either reasonably independent of soil texture or possible
under all-weather conditions, which are expected to guide future
directions of SSM retrievals so that high spatiotemporal resolu­
tion SSM under all-weather conditions can be achieved in near
future. In the new era of rapid data expansion, it is encouraged to
extract more undiscovered information for better SSM estimates.
The artificial intelligence/deep learning approach provide an
opportunity to explore the internal and deep-seated links be­
tween SSM and other remotely sensed parameters, as well as to
provide more accurate auxiliary data, which is beneficial to
overcome the existing difficulties and unsolved challenges for
satellite SSM retrieval.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interests.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China under grants 41921001, 41421001 and 41601397, and the
Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP)
program under grant 2019QZKK0304.
References
Abdellaoui, A., Becker, F., Olory-Henchinger, E., 1986. Use of Meteosat for mapping
thermal inertia and evapotranspiration of a limited region of Mali. J. Appl. Meteorol.
Climatol. 25, 1489–1506.
19
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
Adegoke, J., Carleton, A., 2002. Relations between soil moisture and satellite vegetation
Indices in the U.S. Corn Belt. J. Hydrometeorol. 3, 395–405.
Aires, F., Prigent, C., Rossow, W., 2004. Temporal interpolation of global surface skin
temperature diurnal cycle over land under clear and cloudy conditions. J. Geophys.
Res.-Atmos. 109, D04313.
AI-Yaari, A., Wigneron, J., Ducharne, A., Kerr, Y., de Rosnay, P., de Jeu, R., Govind, A.,
AI-Bitar, A., Albergel, C., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Richaume, P., Mialon, A., 2014. Global-
scale evaluation of two satellite-based passive microwave soil moisture datasets
(SMOS and AMSR-E) with respect to land data assimilation system estimates.
Remote Sens. Environ. 149, 181–195.
AI-Yaari, A., Wigneron, J., Kerr, Y., Rodríguez-Fernández, N., O’Neill, P., Jackson, T., de
Lannoy, G., AI-Bitar, A., Mialon, A., Richaume, P., 2017. Evaluating soil moisture
retreivals from ESA’s SMOA and NASA’s SMAP brightness temperature. Remote
Sens. Environ. 193, 257–273.
AI-Yaari, A., Wigneron, J., Dorigo, W., Colliander, A., Pellarin, T., Hahn, S., Mialon, A.,
Richaume, P., Fernandez-Moran, R., Fan, L., Kerr, Y., De Lannoy, G., 2019.
Assessment and inter-comparison of recently developed/reprocessed microwave
satellite soil moisture products using ISMN ground-based measurements. Remote
Sens. Environ. 224, 289–303.
Akbar, R., Moghaddam, M., 2015. A combined active-passive soil moisture estimation
algorithm with adaptive regularization in support of SMAP. IEEE Trans. Geosci.
Remote Sens. 53, 3312–3324.
Álvarez-Mozos, J., Casalí, J., Gonźalez-Audícana, M., Verhoest, N., 2006. Assessment of
the operational applicability of RADARSAT-1 data for surface soil moisture
estimation. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 44, 913–924.
Amani, M., Parsian, S., MirMazloumi, S., Aieneh, O., 2016. Two new soil moisture
indices based on the NIR-red triangle space of Landsat-8 data. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs.
Geoinf. 50, 176–186.
Amazirh, A., Merlin, O., Er-Raki, S., Gao, Q., Rivalland, V., Malbeteau, Y., Khabba, S.,
Escorihuela, M., 2018. Retrieving surface soil moisture at high spatio-temporal
resolution from a synergy between Sentinel-1 radar and Landsat thermal data: A
study case over bare soil. Remote Sens. Environ. 211, 321–337.
Ambrosone, M., Matese, A., Gennaro, S., Gioli, B., Tudoroiu, M., Genesio, L.,
Miglietta, F., Baronti, S., Maienza, A., Ungaro, F., Toscano, P., 2020. Retrieving soil
moisture in rainfed and irrigated fields using Sentinel-2 observations and a modified
OPTRAM approach. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 89, 102113.
Anderson, S., Udawatta, R., Seobi, T., Garrett, H., 2009. Soil water content and
infiltration in agroforestry buffer strips. Agrofor. Syst. 75, 5–16.
Ångström, A., 1925. The albedo of various surfaces of ground. Geogr. Ann. 7, 323–342.
Attema, E., Ulaby, F., 1978. Vegetation modeled as a water cloud. Radio Sci. 13,
357–364.
Babaeian, E., Sadeghi, M., Franz, T., Jones, S., Tuller, M., 2018. Mapping soil moisture
with the OPtical TRApezoid Model (OPTRAM) based on long-term MODIS
observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 211, 425–440.
Babaeian, E., Sadeghi, M., Jones, S., Montzka, C., Vereecken, H., Tuller, M., 2019.
Ground, proximal, and satellite remote sensing of soil moisture. Rev. Geophys. 57,
530–616.
Bablet, A., Vu, P., Jacquemoud, S., Viallefont-Robinet, F., Fabre, S., Briottet, X.,
Sadeghi, M., Whiting, M., Baret, F., Tian, J., 2018. MARMIT: A multilayer radiative
transfer model of soil reflectance to estimate surface soil moisture content in the
solar domain (400-2500 nm). Remote Sens. Environ. 217, 1–17.
Bach, H., Mauser, W., 1994. Modeling and model verification of the spectral reflectance
of soils under varying moisture conditions. In: Proceedings of the 14th International
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), pp. 2354–2356.
Baghdadi, N., Pedreros, R., Lenotre, N., Dewez, T., Paganini, M., 2007. Impact of
polarization and incidence of the ASAR sensor on coastline mapping: example of
Gabon. Int. J. Remote Sens. 28, 3841–3849.
Baghdadi, N., Zribi, M., Loumagne, C., Ansart, P., Anguela, T., 2008. Analysis of
TerraSAR-X data and their sensitivity to soil surface parameters over bare
agricultural fields. Remote Sens. Environ. 112, 4370–4379.
Baghdadi, N., Chaaya, J., Zribi, M., 2011. Semiempirical calibration of the integral
equation model for SAR data in C-band and cross polarization using radar images
and field measurements. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 8, 14–18.
Balenzano, A., Mattia, F., Satalino, G., Davidson, M., 2011. Dense temporal series of C-
and L-band SAR data for soil moisture retrieval over agricultural crops. IEEE J.
Select. Top. Appl. Earth Observ. Remote Sens. 4, 439–450.
Bao, Y., Lin, L., Wu, S., Deng, K., Petropoulos, G., 2018. Surface soil moisture retrievals
over partially vegetated areas from the synergy of Sentinel-1 and Landsat 8 data
using a modified water-cloud model. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 72, 76–85.
Barrett, B., Dwyer, E., Whelan, P., 2009. Soil moisture retrieval from active spaceborne
microwave observations: an evaluation of current techniques. Remote Sens. 1,
210–242.
Bauer-Marschallinger, B., Paulik, C., Hochstöger, S., Mistelbauer, T., Modanesi, S.,
Ciabatta, L., Massari, C., Brocca, L., Wagner, W., 2018. Soil moisture from fusion of
scatterometer and SAR: closing the scale gap with temporal filtering. Remote Sens.
10, 1030.
Bauer-Marschallinger, B., Naeimi, F., Cao, S., Paulik, C., Schaufler, S., Stachl, T.,
Modanesi, S., Ciabatta, L., Massari, C., Brocca, L., Wagner, W., 2019. Towards global
soil moisture monitoring with Sentinel-1: harnessing assets and overcoming
obstacles. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 57, 520–539.
Beckmann, P., Spizzichino, A., 1963. The Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from
Rough Surfaces. Pergamon Press, Oxford.
Bindlish, R., Jackson, T., Wood, E., Gao, H., Starks, P., Bosch, D., Lakshmi, V., 2003. Soil
moisture estimates from TRMM Microwave Imager observations over the Southern
United States. Remote Sens. Environ. 85, 507–515.
Z.-L. Li et al.
Bindlish, R., Jackson, T., Cosh, M., Zhao, T., O’Nell, P., 2015. Global soil moisture from
the Aquarius/SAC-D satellite: description and initial assessment. IEEE Geosci.
Remote Sens. Lett. 12, 923–927.
Bogena, H., Huisman, J., Güntner, A., Hübner, C., Kusche, C., Jonard, F., Vey, S.,
Vereecken, H., 2015. Emerging methods for noninvasive sensing of soil moisture
dynamics from field to catchment scale: a review. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Water 2,
635–647.
Boopathi, N., Ye, N., Wu, X., Walker, J., Rao, Y., Jackson, T., Kerr, Y., Kim, E.,
McGrath, A., Yeo, I., 2018. Toward soil moisture retreival using tower-based P-band
radiometer observations. In: Proceeding of the IGARSS 2018, pp. 1407–1410.
Bousbih, S., Zribi, M., Pelletier, C., Gorrab, A., Lili-Chabaane, Z., Baghdadi, N., Aissa, N.,
Mougenot, B., 2019. Soil texture estimation using radar and optical data from
Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2. Remote Sens. 11, 1520.
Brocca, L., Crow, W., Ciabatta, L., Massari, C., de Rosnay, P., Enenkel, M., Hahn, S.,
Amarnath, G., Camici, S., Tarpanelli, A., Wagner, W., 2017. A review of the
applications of ASCAT soil moisture products. IEEE J. Select. Top Appl. Earth
Observ. Remote Sens. 10, 2285–2306.
Burke, E., Simmonds, L., 2001. A simple parameterisation for retrieving soil moisture
from passive microwave data. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 5, 39–48.
Calvet, J., Wigneron, J., Walker, J., Karbou, F., Chanzy, A., Albergel, C., 2011. Sensitivity
of passive microwave observations to soil moisture and vegetation water content: L-
band to W-band. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 49, 1190–1199.
Carlson, T., 2007. An overview of the “triangle method” for estimating surface
evapotranspiration and soil moisture from satellite imagery. Sensors 7, 1612–1629.
Carlson, T., Buffum, M., 1989. On estimating total daily evapotranspiration from remote
surface temperature measurements. Remote Sens. Environ. 29, 197–207.
Carlson, T., Dodd, J., Benjamin, S., Cooper, J., 1981. Satellite estimation of the surface
energy balance, moisture availability and thermal inertia. J. Appl. Meteorol.
Climatol. 20, 67–87.
Carlson, T., Gillies, R., Schmugge, T., 1995. An interpretation of methodologies for
indirect measurement of soil water content. Agric. For. Meteorol. 77, 191–205.
Chai, X., Zhang, T., Shao, Y., Gong, H., Liu, L., Xie, K., 2015. Modeling and mapping soil
moisture of plateau pasture using RADARSAT-2 imagery. Remote Sens. 7,
1279–1299.
Champagne, C., White, J., Berg, A., Belair, S., Carrera, M., 2019. Impact of soil moisture
data characteristics on the sensitivity to crop yields under drought and excess
moisture conditions. Remote Sens. 11, 372.
Chaubell, M., Yueh, S., Doubar, S., Colliander, A., Chen, F., Chan, S., Entekhabi, D.,
Bindlish, R., O’Neill, P., Asanuma, J., Berg, A., Bosch, D., Caldwell, T., Cosh, M.,
Collins, C., Martínez-Fernández, J., Seyfried, M., Starks, P., Su, Z., Thibeault, M.,
Walker, J., 2020. Improved SMAP dual-channel algorithm for the retrieval of soil
moisture. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 58, 3894–3905.
Chauhan, N., 1997. Soil moisture estimation under a vegetation cover: combined active
passive microwave remote sensing approach. Int. J. Remote Sens. 18, 1079–1097.
Chen, K., 2020. Radar Scattering and Imaging of Rough Surfaces: Modeling and
Applications with MATLAB. CRC Press, FL, USA.
Chen, K., Wu, T., Tsang, L., Li, Q., Shi, J., Fung, A., 2003. Emission of rough surfaces
calculated by the integral equation method with comparison to three-dimensional
moment method simulations. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 41, 90–101.
Chen, J., Chen, J., Liao, A., Cao, X., Chen, L., Chen, X., He, C., Han, G., Peng, S., Lu, M.,
Zhang, W., Tong, X., Mills, J., 2015. Global land cover mapping at 30 m resolution: a
POK-based operational approach. ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens. 103, 7–27.
Choudhury, B., Tucker, C., Golus, R., Newcomb, W., 1987. Monitoring vegetation using
Nimbus-7 scanning multichannel microwave radiometer’s data. Int. J. Remote Sens.
8, 533–538.
Cracknell, A., Xue, Y., 1996. Thermal inertia determination from space: a tutorial review.
Int. J. Remote Sens. 17, 431–461.
Crow, W., Kustas, W., Prueger, J., 2008. Monitoring root-zone soil moisture through the
assimilation of a thermal remote sensing-based soil moisture proxy into a water
balance model. Remote Sens. Environ. 112, 1268–1281.
Crow, W., Berg, A., Cosh, M., Loew, A., Mohanty, B., Panciera, R., Rosnay, P., Ryu, D.,
Walker, J., 2012. Upscaling sparse ground-based soil moisture observations for the
validation of coarse-resolution satellite soil moisture products. Rev. Geophys. 50,
RG2002.
Crow, W., Chen, F., Reichle, R., Liu, Q., 2017. L band microwave remote sensing and land
data assimilation improve the representation of prestorm soil moisture conditions for
hydrologic forecasting. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 5495–5503.
Das, N., Entekhabi, D., Njoku, E., 2011. An algorithm for merging SMAP radiometer and
radar data for high-resolution soil-moisture retrieval. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 49, 1504–1512.
Das, N., Entekhabi, D., Njoku, E., Shi, J., Johnson, J., Colliander, A., 2014. Tests of the
SMAP combined radar and radiometer algorithm using airborne field campaign
observations and simulated data. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 52, 2018–2028.
Das, N., Entekhabi, D., Dunbar, R., Colliander, A., Chen, F., Crow, W., Jackson, T.,
Berg, A., Bosch, D., Caldwell, T., Cosh, M., Goodrich, D., Lopez-Baeza, E.,
Moghaddam, M., Rowlandson, T., Starks, P., Thibeault, M., Walker, J., Wu, X.,
O’Neill, P., Yueh, S., Njoku, E., 2018. The SMAP mission combined active-passive
soil moisture product at 9 km and 3 km spatial resolutions. Remote Sens. Environ.
211, 204–217.
Das, N., Entekhabi, D., Dunbar, R., Chaubell, M., Colliander, A., Yueh, S., Jagdhuber, T.,
Chen, F., Crow, W., O’Neill, P., Walker, J., Berg, A., Bosch, D., Caldwell, T., Cosh, M.,
Collins, C., Lopez-Baeza, E., Thibeault, M., 2019. The SMAP and Copernicus Sentinel
1A/B microwave active-passive high resolution surface soil moisture product.
Remote Sens. Environ. 233, 111380.
20
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
De Meesters, A., Jeu, R., Owe, M., 2005. Analytical derivation of the vegetation optical
depth from the microwave polarization difference index. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens.
Lett. 2, 121–123.
De Roo, R., Du, Y., Ulaby, F., Dobson, M., 2001. A semi-empirical backscattering model
at L-band and C-band for a soybean canopy with soil moisture inversion. IEEE Trans.
Geosci. Remote Sens. 39, 864–872.
Della Vecchia, A., Ferrazzoli, P., Guerriero, L., Ninivaggi, L., Strozi, T., Wegmüller, U.,
2008. Observing and modeling multifrequeency scattering of maize during the whole
growth cycle. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 46, 3709–3718.
Dente, L., Ferrazzoli, P., Su, Z., van der Velde, R., Guerriero, L., 2014. Combined use of
active and passive microwave satellite data to constrain a discrete scattering model.
Remote Sens. Environ. 155, 222–238.
Dobson, M., Ulaby, F., Hallikainen, M., Elrayes, M., 1985. Microwave dielectric behavior
of wet soil-part II: dielectric mixing models. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. GE-23,
35–46.
Dobson, M., Ulaby, F., LeToan, T., Beaudoin, A., Kasischke, E., Christensen, N., 1992.
Dependence of radar backscatter on coniferous forest biomass. IEEE Trans. Geosci.
Remote Sens. 30, 412–415.
Domenech, M., Amiotti, N., Costa, J., Castro-Franco, M., 2020. Prediction of topsoil
properties at filed-scale by using C-band SAR data. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf.
93, 102197.
Domínguez-Niño, J., Oliver-Manera, J., Girona, J., Casadesús, J., 2020. Differential
irrigation scheduling by an automated algorithm of water balance tuned by
capacitance-type soil moisture sensors. Agric. Water Manag. 228, 105880.
Dong, L., Baghdadi, N., Ludwig, R., 2013. Validation of the AIEM through correlation
length parameterization at field scale using radar imagery in a semi-arid
environment. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 10, 461–465.
Dorigo, W., Gruber, A., de Jeu, R., Wagner, W., Stacke, T., Loew, A., Albergel, C.,
Brocca, L., Chung, D., Parinussa, R., 2015. Evaluation of the ESA CCI soil moisture
product using ground-based observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 162, 380–395.
Dorigo, W., Wagner, W., Albergel, C., et al., 2017. ESA CCI Soil Moisture for improved
Earth system understanding: state-of-the art and future directions. Remote Sens.
Environ. 203, 185–215.
Du, W., Qin, Z., Fan, J., Gao, M., Wang, F., Abbasi, B., 2019. An efficient approach to
remove thick cloud in VNIR bands of multi-temporal remote sensing images. Remote
Sens. 11, 1284.
Duan, S., Li, Z.-L., Leng, P., 2017. A framework for the retrieval of all-weather land
surface temperature at a high spatial resolution from polar-orbiting thermal infrared
and passive microwave data. Remote Sens. Environ. 195, 107–117.
Dubois, C., VanZyl, J., Engman, T., 1995. Measuring soil moisture with imaging radars.
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 33, 915–926.
Eagleman, J., Lin, W., 1976. Remote sensing of soil moisture by a 21-cm passive
radiometer. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. 81, 3660–3666.
Ebel, P., Meraner, A., Schmitt, M., Zhu, X., 2020. Multisensor data fusion for cloud
removal in global and all-season Sentinel-2 imagery. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2020.3024744.
El Hajj, M., Baghdadi, N., Zribi, M., Bazzi, H., 2017. Synergic use of Sentinel-1 and
Sentinel-2 images for operational soil moisture mapping at high spatial resolution
over agricultural areas. Remote Sens. 9, 1292.
Engstrom, R., Hope, A., Kwon, H., Stow, D., 2008. The relationship between soil moisture
and NDVI near Barrow, Alaska. Phys. Geogr. 29, 38–53.
Entekhabi, D., Njoku, E., O’Neill, P., Kellogg, K., Crow, W., Edelstein, W., Entin, J.,
Goodman, S., Jackson, T., Johnson, J., et al., 2010. The Soil Moisture Active Passive
(SMAP) mission. In: Proceeding of IEEE, 98, pp. 704–716.
Etminan, A., Tabatabaeenejad, A., Moghaddam, M., 2020. Retrieving root-zone soil
moisture profile from P-band radar via hybrid global and local optimization. IEEE
Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 58, 5400–5408.
Fabre, S., Briottet, X., Lesaignoux, A., 2015. Estimation of soil moisture content from the
spectral reflectance of bare soils in the 0.4-2.5 μm domain. Sensors 15, 3262–3281.
Fernandez-Moran, R., Al-Yaari, A., Mialon, A., Mahmoodi, A., Al Bitar, A., De Lannoy, G.,
Rodriguez-Fernandez, N., Lopez-Baeza, E., Kerr, Y., Wigneron, J., 2017. SMOS-IC: an
alternative SMOS soil moisture and vegetation optical depth product. Remote Sens.
9, 457.
Ferrazzoli, P., Guerriero, L., 2010. Synergy of active and passive signatures to decouple
soil and vegetation effects. In: Proceeding of the 11th Specialist Meeting on
Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing of the Environment.
Fluhrer, A., Jagdhuber, T., Akbar, R., O’Nell, P., Entekhabi, D., 2020. Simultaneous
retrieval of surface roughness parameters for bare soils from combined active-
passive microwave SMAP observations. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. https://
doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2020.3035204.
Fung, A., Chen, K., 2010. Microwave Scattering and Emission Models for Users. Artech
House, Norwood, MA, USA.
Fung, A., Li, Z., Chen, K., 1992. Backscattering from a randomly rough dielectric surface.
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 30, 356–369.
Fung, A., Shah, M., Tjuatja, S., 1994. Numerical simulation of scattering from three-
dimensional randomly rough surfaces. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 32,
986–994.
Gao, H., Wood, E., Jackson, T., Drusch, M., Bindlish, R., 2006. Using TRMM/TMI to
retrieve surface soil moisture over the southern United States from 1998 to 2002.
J. Hydrometeorol. 7, 23–38.
Gao, Z., Xu, X., Wang, J., Yang, H., Huang, W., Feng, H., 2013. A method of estimating
soil moisture based on the linear decomposition of mixture pixels. Math. Comput.
Model. 58, 606–613.
Gao, L., Sadeghi, M., Ebtehaj, A., 2020. Microwave retrievals of soil moisture and
vegetation optical depth with improved resolution using a combined constrained
Z.-L. Li et al.
inversion algorithm: Application for SMAP satellite. Remote Sens. Environ. 239,
111662.
Gherboudj, I., Magagi, R., Berg, A., Toth, B., 2011. Soil moisture retrieval over
agricultural fields from multi-polarized and multi-angular RADARSAT-2 SAR data.
Remote Sens. Environ. 115, 33–43.
Ghulam, A., Qin, Q., Zhan, Z., 2007a. Designing of the perpendicular drought index.
Environ. Geol. 52, 1045–1052.
Ghulam, A., Qin, Q., Teyip, T., Li, Z.-L., 2007b. Modified perpendicular drought index
(MPDI): a real-time drought monitoring method. ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote
Sens. 62, 150–164.
Gillies, R., Kustas, W., Humes, K., 1997. A verification of the “triangle” method for
obtaining surface soil water content and energy fluxes from remote measurements of
the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and surface radiant
temperature. Int. J. Remote Sens. 18, 3145–3166.
Gómez, M., Olioso, A., Sobrino, J., Jacob, F., 2005. Retrieval of evapotranspiration over
the Aplilles/ReSeDA experimental site using airborne POLDER sensor and a thermal
camera. Remote Sens. Environ. 96, 399–408.
Gorrab, A., Zribi, M., Baghdadi, N., Mougenot, B., Chabaane, Z., 2014. X-band Terrasar-X
and COSMO-SkyMed SAR data for bare soil parameters estimation. In: Proceedings
of the 19th International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS),
pp. 3224–3227.
Goward, S., Cruickhanks, G., Hope, A., 1985. Observed relation between thermal
emission and reflected spectral radiance of a complex vegetated landscape. Remote
Sens. Environ. 18, 137–146.
Goward, S., Xue, Y., Czajkowski, K., 2002. Evaluating land surface moisture conditions
from the remotely sensed temperature/vegetation index measurements: An
exploration with the simplified simple biosphere model. Remote Sens. Environ. 79,
225–242.
Grant, J., Wigneron, J., De Jeu, R., Lawrence, H., Mialon, A., Richaume, P., AI-Bitar, A.,
Drusch, M., van Marle, M., Kerr, Y., 2016. Comparison of SMOS and AMSR-E
vegetation optical depth to four MODIS-based vegetation indices. Remote Sens.
Environ. 172, 87–100.
Guerriero, L., Ferrazzoli, P., Rahmoune, R., 2012. A synergic view of L-band active and
passive remote sensing of vegetated soil. In: Proceeding of the 12th Specialist
Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing of the Environment.
Guerriero, L., Ferrazzoli, P., Vittucci, C., Rahmoune, R., Aurizzi, M., Mattioni, A., 2016.
L-band passive and active signatures of vegetated soil: simulations with a unified
model. IEEE J. Select. Top. Appl. Earth Observ. Remote Sens. 9, 2520–2531.
Hain, C., Crow, W., Anderson, M., Mecikalski, J., 2012. An ensemble Kalman filter dual
assimilation of thermal infrared and microwave satellite observations of soil
moisture into the Noah land surface model. Water Resour. Res. 48, W11517.
Hallikainen, M., Ulaby, F., Dobson, M., Elrayes, M., Wu, L., 1985. Microwave dielectric
behavior of wet soil-part I: Empirical models and experimental observations. IEEE
Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. GE-23, 25–34.
Han, X., Duan, S., Li, Z.-L., 2017. Atmospheric correction for retrieving ground
brightness temperature at commonly-used passive microwave frequencies. Opt.
Express 25, A36–A57.
Hasan, S., Montzka, C., Rüdiger, C., Ali, M., Bogena, H., Vereecken, H., 2014. Soil
moisture retrieval from airborne L-band passive microwave using high resolution
multispectral data. ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens. 91, 59–71.
Hassan-Esfahani, L., Torres-Rua, A., Jensen, A., McKee, M., 2015. Assessment of surface
soil moisture using high-resolution multispectral imagery and artificial neural
networks. Remote Sens. 7, 2627–2646.
Haubrock, S., Chabrillat, S., Lemmnitz, C., Kaufmann, H., 2008. Surface soil moisture
quantification models from reflectance data under field conditions. Int. J. Remote
Sens. 29, 3–29.
Jackson, T., 1993. Measuring surface soil moisture using passive microwave remote
sensing. Hydrol. Process. 7, 139–152.
Jackson, T., Le Vine, D., Hsu, A., Oldak, A., Starks, P., Swift, C., Isham, J., Haken, M.,
1999. Soil moisture mapping at regional scales using microwave radiometry: the
southern Great Plains hydrology experiment. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 37,
2136–2151.
Jackson, T., Chen, D., Cosh, M., Li, F., Andersn, M., Walthall, C., Doriaswamy, P.,
Hunt, E., 2004. Vegetation water content mapping using Landsat data derived
normalized difference water index for corn and soybeans. Remote Sens. Environ. 92,
475–482.
Jagdhuber, T., Konings, A., McColl, K., Alemohammad, S., Das, N., Montzka, C., Link, M.,
Akbar, R., Entekhabi, D., 2019. Physics-based modeling of active and passive
microwave covariations over vegetated surfaces. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens.
57, 788–802.
Jiang, Y., Tang, R., Jiang, X., Li, Z.-L., Gao, C., 2019. Estimation of soil evaporation and
vegetation transpiration using two trapezoidal models from MODIS data. J. Geophys.
Res.-Atmos. 124, 7647–7664.
Joseph, A., van der Velde, R., O’Neill, P., Lang, R., Gish, T., 2008. Soil moisture retrieval
during a corn growth cycle using L-Band (1.6 GHz) radar observations. IEEE Trans.
Geosci. Remote Sens. 46, 2365–2374.
Kang, J., Jin, R., Li, X., Ma, C., Qin, J., Zhang, Y., 2017. High spatio-temporal resolution
mapping of soil moisture by integrating wireless sensor network observations and
MODIS apparent thermal inertia in the Babao River. Remote Sens. Environ. 191,
232–245.
Karthikeyan, L., Pan, M., Wanders, N., Kumar, D., Wood, E., 2017. Four decades of
microwave satellite soil moisture observations: part 1. A review of retrieval
algorithms. Adv. Water Resour. 109, 106–120.
Karthikeyan, L., Pan, M., Konings, A., María, P., Wood, E., 2019. Simultaneous retrieval
of global scale vegetation optical depth, surface roughness, and soil moisture using
X-band AMSR-E observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 234, 111473.
21
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
Kerr, Y., Waldteufel, P., Richaume, P., Wigneron, J., Ferrazzoli, P., Mahmoodi, A., Al
Bitar, A., Cabot, F., Gruhier, C., Juglea, S., 2012. The SMOS soil moisture retrieval
algorithm. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 50, 1384–1403.
Khle, A., 1977. A simple thermal model of the Earth’s surface for geological mapping by
remote sensing. J. Geophys. Res. 82, 1673–1680.
Kim, Y., Jackson, T., Bindlish, R., Lee, H., Hong, S., 2013. Monitoring soybean growth
using L-, C-, and X-band scatterometer data. Int. J. Remote Sens. 34, 4069–4082.
Kim, H., Parinussa, R., Konings, A., Wagner, W., Cosh, M., Lakshmi, V., Zohaib, M.,
Choi, M., 2018. Global-scale assessment and combination of SMAP with ASCAT
(active) and AMSR2 (passive) soil moisture products. Remote Sens. Environ. 204,
260–275.
Kolassa, J., Gentine, P., Prigent, C., Aires, F., 2016. Soil moisture retrieval from AMSR-E
and ASCAT microwave observation synergy. Part 1: Satellite data analysis. Remote
Sens. Environ. 173, 1–14.
Kolassa, J., Gentine, P., Prigent, C., Aires, F., Alemohammad, S., 2017. Soil moisture
retrieval from AMSR-E and ASCAT microwave observation synergy. Part 2: product
evaluation. Remote Sens. Environ. 195, 202–217.
Konings, A., Piles, M., Rötzer, K., Mccoll, K., Chan, S., Entekhabi, D., 2016. Vegetation
optical depth and scattering albedo retrieval using time series of dual-polarized L-
band radiometer observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 172, 178–189.
Kornelsen, K., Coulibaly, P., 2013. Advances in soil moisture retrieval from synthetic
aperture radar and hydrological applications. J. Hydrol. 476, 460–489.
Koster, R., Dirmeyer, P., Guo, Z., Bonan, G., Chan, E., Cox, P., et al., 2004. Regions of
strong coupling between soil moisture and precipitation. Science 305, 1138–1140.
Kumar, K., Rao, H., Arora, M., 2015. Study of water cloud model vegetation descriptors
in estimating soil moisture in Solani catchment. Hydrol. Process. 29, 2137–2148.
Kweon, S., Oh, Y., 2015. A modified Water-Cloud model with leaf angle parameters for
microwave backscattering from agricultural fields. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens.
53, 2802–2809.
Le Vine, D., Karam, M., 1996. Dependence of attenuation in a vegetation canopy on
frequency and plant water content. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 34,
1090–1096.
Le Vine, D., Matthaeis, P., 2014. Aquarius active/passive RFI environment at L-Band.
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 11, 1747–1751.
Lee, K., Anagnostou, E., 2004. A combined passive/active microwave remote sensing
approach for surface variable retrieval using Tropical Rainfall measuring Mission
observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 92, 112–125.
Lekner, J., Dorf, M., 1988. Why some things are darker when wet. Appl. Opt. 27,
1278–1280.
Leng, P., Song, X., Li, Z.-L., Ma, J., Zhou, F., Li, S., 2014. Bare surface soil moisture
retrieval from the synergistic use of optical and thermal infrared data. Int. J. Remote
Sens. 35, 988–1003.
Leng, P., Song, X., Duan, S., Li, Z.-L., 2016a. Preliminary validation of two temporal
parameter-based soil moisture retrieval models using a satellite product and in situ
soil moisture measurements over the REMEDHUS network. Int. J. Remote Sens. 37,
5902–5917.
Leng, P., Song, X., Duan, S., Li, Z.-L., 2016b. A practical algorithm for estimating surface
soil moisture using combined optical and thermal infrared data. Int. J. Appl. Earth
Obs. Geoinf. 52, 338–348.
Leng, P., Li, Z.-L., Duan, S., Gao, M., Huo, H., 2017. A practical approach for deriving all-
weather soil moisture content using combined satellite and meteorological data.
ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens. 131, 40–51.
Leng, P., Li, Z.-L., Liao, Q., Gao, M., Duan, S., Zhang, X., 2019. Determination of all-sky
surface soil moisture at fine spatial resolution synergistically using optical/thermal
infrared and microwave measurements. J. Hydrol. 579, 124167.
Lesaignoux, A., Fabre, S., Briottet, X., 2013. Influence of soil moisture content on spectral
reflectance of bare soils in the 0.4-14μm domain. Int. J. Remote Sens. 34,
2268–2285.
Li, L., Gaiser, P., Gao, B., Bevilacqua, R., Jackson, T., Njoku, E., Rüdiger, C., Calvet, J.,
Bindlish, R., 2010. WindSat global soil moisture retrieval and validation. IEEE Trans.
Geosci. Remote Sens. 50, 2683–2694.
Li, X., Zhou, Y., Asrar, G., Zhu, Z., 2018. Creating a seamless 1 km resolution daily land
surface temperature dataset for urban and surrounding areas in the conterminous
United States. Remote Sens. Environ. 206, 84–97.
Liao, Q., Leng, P., Ren, C., Li, Z.-L., Gao, M., Duan, S., Zhang, X., Shang, G., 2020.
Evapotranspiration retrieval under different aridity conditions over North American
grasslands. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 58, 7205–7215.
Lin, H., Chen, J., Pei, Z., Zhang, S., Hu, X., 2009. Monitoring sugarcane growth using
ENVISAT ASAR data. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 47, 2572–2580.
Lin, C., Tsai, P., Lai, K., Chen, J., 2013. Cloud removal from multitemporal satellite
images using information cloning. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 51, 232–241.
Liu, W., Baret, F., Gu, X., Zhang, B., Tong, Q., Zheng, L., 2003. Evaluation of methods for
soil surface moisture estimation from reflectance data. Int. J. Remote Sens. 24,
2069–2083.
Liu, Y., Parinussa, R., Dorigo, W., de Jeu, R., Wagner, W., van Dijk, A., McCabe, M.,
Evans, J., 2011. Developing an improved soil moisture dataset by blending passive
and active microwave satellite-based retrievals. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 15, 425–436.
Liu, Y., Dorigo, W., Parinussa, R., de Jeu, R., Wagner, W., McCabe, M., Evans, J., van
Dijk, A., 2012. Trend-preserving blending of passive and active microwave soil
moisture retrievals. Remote Sens. Environ. 123, 280–297.
Lobell, D., Asner, G., 2002. Moisture effects on soil reflectance. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 66,
722–727.
Long, D., Bai, L., Yan, L., Zhang, C., Yang, W., Lei, H., Quan, J., Meng, X., Shi, C., 2019.
Generation of spatially complete and daily continuous surface soil moisture of high
spatial resolution. Remote Sens. Environ. 233, 111364.
Z.-L. Li et al.
Lu, S., Ju, Z., Ren, T., Horton, R., 2009. A general approach to estimate soil water content
from thermal inertia. Agric. For. Meteorol. 149, 1693–1698.
Lu, Y., Horton, R., Zhang, X., Ren, T., 2018. Accounting for soil porosity improves a
thermal inertia model for estimating surface soil water content. Remote Sens.
Environ. 212, 79–89.
Lv, S., Zeng, Y., Wen, J., Zhao, H., Su, Z., 2018. Estimation of penetration depth from soil
effective temperature in microwave radiometry. Remote Sens. 10, 519.
Ma, J., Huang, S., Li, J., Li, X., Song, X., Leng, P., Sun, Y., 2017. Estimating vegetation
water content of corn and soybean using different polarization ratios based on L- and
S-band radar data. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 14, 364–368.
Ma, H., Zeng, J., Chen, N., Zhang, X., Cosh, M., Wang, W., 2019. Satellite surface soil
moisture from SMAP, SMOS, AMSR2 and ESA CCI: A comprehensive assessment
using global ground-based observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 231, 111215.
Mananze, S., Pôças, I., Cunha, M., 2019. Agricultural drought monitoring based on soil
moisture derived from the optical trapezoid model in Mozambique. J. Appl. Remote.
Sens. 13, 024519.
Manfreda, S., Brocca, L., Moramarco, T., Melone, F., Sheffield, J., 2014. A physically
based approach for the estimation of root-zone soil moisture from surface
measurements. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 18, 1199–1212.
Martínez-Fernández, J., González-Zamora, A., Sánchez, N., Gumuzzio, A., Herrero-
Jiménez, C., 2016. Satellite soil moisture for agricultural drought monitoring:
Assessment of the SMOS derived Soil Water Deficit Index. Remote Sens. Environ.
177, 277–286.
Matsushima, D., Kimura, R., Shinoda, M., 2012. Soil moisture estimation using thermal
inertia: potential and sensitivity to data conditions. J. Hydrometeorol. 13, 638–648.
Matsushima, D., Asanuma, J., Kaihotsu, I., 2018. Thermal inertia approach using a heat
budget model to estimate the spatial distribution of surface soil moisture over a
semiarid grassland in Central Mongolia. J. Hydrometeorol. 19, 245–265.
Metz, M., Andreo, V., Neteler, M., 2017. A new fully gap-free time series of land surface
temperature from MODIS LST data. Remote Sens. 9, 1333.
Mishra, V., Cruise, J., Hain, C., Mecikalski, J., Anderson, C., 2018. Development of soil
moisture profiles through coupled microwave-thermal infrared observations in the
southeastern United States. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 22, 4935–4957.
Mladenova, I., Jackson, T., Njoku, E., Bindlish, R., Chan, S., Cosh, M., Holmes, T., de
Jeu, R., Jones, L., Kimball, J., Paloscia, S., Santi, E., 2014. Remote monitoring of soil
moisture using passive microwave-based techniques—Theoretical basis and
overview of selected algorithms for AMSR-E. Remote Sens. Environ. 144, 197–213.
Mo, T., Choudhury, B., Schmugge, T., Wang, J., Jackson, T., 1982. A model for
microwave emission from vegetation-covered fields. J. Geophys. Res. 87, 229–237.
Moran, M., Clarke, T., Inoue, Y., Vidal, A., 1994. Estimating crop water deficit using the
relation between surface-air temperature and spectral vegetation index. Remote
Sens. Environ. 49, 246–263.
Moran, M., Peters-Lidard, C., Watts, J., McElroy, S., 2004. Estimating soil moisture at the
watershed scale with satellite-based radar and land surface models. Int. J. Remote
Sens. 30, 805–826.
Muller, E., Décamps, H., 2011. Modeling soil moisture-reflectance. Remote Sens.
Environ. 76, 173–180.
Naeimi, V., Scipal, K., Bartalis, Z., Hasenauer, S., Wagner, W., 2009. An improved soil
moisture retrieval algorithm for ERS and METOP scatterometer observations. IEEE
Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 47, 1999–2013.
Nagy, A., Riczu, P., Gálya, B., Tamás, J., 2014. Spectral estimation of soil water content
in visible and near infra-red range. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 3, 163–171.
Narayan, U., Lakshmi, V., Jackson, T., 2006. High-resolution change estimation of soil
moisture using L-band radiometer and radar observations made during the SMEX02
experiments. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 44, 1545–1554.
Narvekar, P., Entekhabi, D., Kim, S., Ejoku, E., 2015. Soil moisture retrievals using L-
band radar observations. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 53, 3492–3506.
Nearing, G., Moran, S., Scott, R., Ponce-Campos, G., 2012. Coupling diffusion and
maximum entropy models to estimate thermal inertia. Remote Sens. Environ. 119,
222–231.
Newton, R., Black, Q., Makanvand, S., Blanchard, A., Jean, B., 1982. Soil moisture
information and thermal microwave emission. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens.
275–281.
Njoku, E., Chan, S., 2006. Vegetation and surface roughness effects on AMSR-E land
observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 100, 190–199.
Njoku, E., Entekhabi, D., 1996. Passive microwave remote sensing of soil moisture.
J. Hydrol. 184, 101–129.
Njoku, E., Kong, J., 1977. Theory for passive microwave remote sensing of near-surface
soil moisture. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth Planets 82, 3108–3118.
Njoku, E., Li, L., 1999. Retrieval of land surface parameters using passive microwave
measurements at 6-18 GHz. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 37, 79–93.
Norouzi, H., Rossow, W., Temimi, M., Prigent, C., Azarderakhsh, M., Boukabara, S.,
Khanbilvardi, R., 2012. Using microwave brightness temperature diurnal cycle to
improve emissivity retrievals over land. Remote Sens. Environ. 123, 470–482.
Notarnicola, C., Angiulli, M., Posa, F., 2006. Use of radar and optical remotely sensed
data for soil moisture retrieval over vegetated areas. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 44, 925–935.
Ochsner, T., Cosh, M., Cuenca, R., Dorigo, W., Draper, C., Hagimoto, Y., Kerr, Y.,
Larson, K., Njoku, E., Small, E., Zreda, M., 2013. State of the art in large-scale soil
moisture monitoring. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 77, 1888–1919.
Oh, Y., 2004. Quantitative retrieval of soil moisture content and surface roughness from
multipolarized radar observations of bare soil surfaces. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 42, 596–601.
Oh, Y., Sarabandi, K., Ulaby, F., 1992. An empirical model and an inversion technique for
radar scattering from bare soil surfaces. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 30,
370–382.
22
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
O’Neill, P., Chauhan, N., Jackson, T., 1996. Use of active and passive microwave remote
sensing for soil moisture estimation through corn. Int. J. Remote Sens. 17,
1851–1865.
Ouellette, J., Johnson, J., Balenzano, A., Mattia, F., Satalino, G., Kin, S., Cosh, M.,
Caldwell, T., Walker, J., Berg, A., 2017. A time-series approach to estimating soil
moisture from vegetated surfaces using L-band radar backscatter. IEEE Trans.
Geosci. Remote Sens. 55, 3186–3193.
Owe, M., de Jeu, R., Walker, J., 2001. A methodology for surface soil moisture and
vegetation optical depth retrieval using the microwave polarization difference index.
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 39, 1643–1654.
Owe, M., de Jeu, R., Holmes, T., 2008. Multisensor historical climatology of satellite-
derived global land surface moisture. J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf. 113, 196–199.
Paloscia, S., Pettinato, S., Santi, E., Notarnicola, C., Pasolli, L., Reppucci, A., 2013. Soil
moisture mapping using Sentinel-1 images: algorithm and preliminary validation.
Remote Sens. Environ. 134, 234–248.
Pan, M., Sahoo, A., Wood, E., 2014. Improving soil moisture retrievals from a physically-
based radiative transfer model. Remote Sens. Environ. 140, 130–140.
Parinussa, R., Holmes, T., de Jeu, R., 2012. Soil moisture retrievals from the WindSat
spaceborne polarimetric microwave radiometer. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens.
50, 2683–2694.
Parinussa, R., Wang, G., Holmes, T., Liu, Y., Dolman, A., de Jeu, R., Jiang, T., Zhang, P.,
Shi, J., 2014. Global surface soil moisture from the Microwave Radiation Imager
onboard the Fengyun-3B satellite. Int. J. Remote Sens. 35, 7007–7029.
Parrens, M., Wigneron, J., Richaume, P., Mialon, A., Al Bitar, A., Fernandez-Moran, R.,
Al-Yaari, A., Kerr, Y., 2016. Global-scale surface roughness effects at L-band as
estimated from SMOS observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 181, 122–136.
Parrens, M., Wigneron, J., Richaume, P., Al Bitar, A., Mialon, A., Fernandez-Moran, R.,
Al-Yaari, A., Kerr, Y., 2017. Considering combined or separted roughness and
vegetation effects in soil moisture retreivals. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 55,
73–86.
Peng, J., Loew, A., Merlin, O., Verhoest, N., 2017. A review of methods for downscaling
remotely sensed soil moisture. Rev. Geophys. 55, 341–366.
Peng, J., Albergel, C., Balenzano, A., Brocca, L., Cartus, O., Cosh, M., Crow, W.,
Dabrowska-Zielinska, K., Dadson, S., Davidson, M., de Rosnay, P., Dorigo, W.,
Gruber, A., Hagemann, S., Hirschi, M., Kerr, Y., Lovergine, F., Mahecha, M.,
Marzahn, P., Mattia, F., Musial, J., Preuschmann, S., Reichle, R., Satalino, G.,
Silgram, M., van Bodegom, P., Verhoest, N., Wagner, W., Walker, J., Wegmüller, U.,
Loew, A., 2021. A roadmap for high-resolution satellite soil moisture applications-
confronting product characteristics with user requirements. Remote Sens. Environ.
252, 112162.
Petropoulos, G., Carlson, T., Wooster, M., Islam, S., 2009. A review of Ts/VI remote
sensing based methods for the retrieval of land surface energy fluxes and soil surface
moisture. Prog. Phys. Geogr. 33, 224–250.
Petropoulos, G., Griffiths, H., Dorigo, W., Xaver, A., Gruber, A., 2013. Surface soil
moisture estimation: Significance, controls and conventional measurement
techniques. In: Petropoulos (Ed.), Remote Sensing of Energy Fluxes and Soil
Moisture Content. G. Taylor and Francis.
Petropoulos, G., Ireland, G., Barrett, B., 2015. Surface soil moisture retrievals from
remote sensing: current status, products and future trends. Phys. Chem. Earth 83-84,
36–56.
Petropoulos, G., Srivastava, P., Ferentinos, K., Hristopoulos, D., 2020. Evaluating the
capabilities of optical/TIR imaging sensing systems for quantifying soil water
content. Geocarto Int. 35, 494–511.
Pham, H., Kim, S., Marshall, L., Johnson, F., 2019. Using 3D robust smoothing to fill land
surface temperature gaps at the continental scale. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 82,
101879.
Pierdicca, N., Pulvirenti, L., Ticconi, F., Brogioni, M., 2008. Radar bistatic configurations
for soil moisture retrieval: a simulation study. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 46
(3252–3264), 2008.
Pierdicca, N., Pulvirenti, L., Bignami, C., 2010. Soil moisture estimation over vegetated
terrains using multitemporal remote sensing data. Remote Sens. Environ. 114,
440–448.
Piles, M., Entekhabi, D., Camps, A., 2009. A change detection algorithm for retrieving
high-resolution soil moisture from SMAP radar and radiometer observations. IEEE
Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 47, 4125–4131.
Piles, M., Petropoulos, G., Sánchez, N., González-Zamora, Á., Ireland, G., 2016. Towards
improved spatio-temporal resolution soil moisture retrievals from the synergy of
SMOS and MSG SEVIRI spaceborne observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 180,
403–417.
Price, J., 1977. Thermal inertia mapping: a new view of the earth. J. Geophys. Res.-
Atmos. 82, 2582–2590.
Price, J., 1985. On the analysis of thermal infrared imagery: the limited utility of
apparent thermal inertia. Remote Sens. Environ. 18, 59–73.
Przeździecki, K., Zawadzki, J., 2020. Modification of the land surface temperature-
vegetation index triangle method for soil moisture condition estimation by using
SYNOP reports. Ecol. Indic. 119, 106823.
Quast, R., Wagner, W., 2016. Analytical solution for first-order scattering in bistatic
radiative transfer interaction problems of layered media. Appl. Opt. 55, 5379–5386.
Quast, R., Albergel, C., Calvet, J., Wagner, W., 2019. A generic first-order radiative
transfer modelling approach for the inversion of soil and vegetation parameters from
scatterometer observations. Remote Sens. 11, 285.
Raffy, M., Becker, F., 1985. An inverse problem occurring in remote sensing in the
thermal infrared bands and its solution. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. 90, 5809–5819.
Rodríguez-Fernández, N., Aires, F., Richaume, P., Kerr, Y., Prigent, C., Kolassa, J.,
Cabot, F., Jimenez, C., Mahmoodi, A., Drusch, M., 2015. Soil moisture retrieval using
neural networks: application to SMOS. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 99, 1–17.
Z.-L. Li et al.
Sadeghi, M., Jones, S., Philpot, W., 2015. A linear physically-based model for remote
sensing of soil moisture using short wave infrared bands. Remote Sens. Environ. 164,
66–76.
Sadeghi, M., Babaeian, E., Tuller, M., Jones, S., 2017. The optical trapezoid model: a
novel approach to remote sensing of soil moisture applied to Sentinel-2 and Landsat-
8 observations. Remote Sens. Environ. 198, 52–68.
Saleh, K., Wigneron, J., de Rosnay, P., Calvet, J., Kerr, Y., 2006. Semi-empirical
regressions at L-band applied to surface soil moisture retrievals over grass. Remote
Sens. Environ. 010, 45–426.
Sandholt, I., Rasmussen, K., Andersen, J., 2002. A simple interpretation of the surface
temperature/vegetation index space for assessment of surface moisture status.
Remote Sens. Environ. 79, 213–224.
Santi, E., Pettinato, S., Paloscia, S., Pampaloni, P., Macelloni, G., Brogioni, M., 2012. An
algorithm for generating soil moisture and snow depth maps from microwave
spaceborne radiometers: HydroAlgo. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16, 3659–3676.
Santi, E., Paloscia, S., Pettinato, S., Fontanelli, G., 2016. Application of artificial neural
networks for the soil moisture retrieval from active and passive microwave
spaceborne sensors. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 48, 61–73.
Saradjian, M., Hosseini, M., 2011. Soil moisture estimation by using multipolarization
SAR image. Adv. Space Res. 48, 278–286.
Sawada, Y., Koike, T., Aida, K., Toride, K., Walker, J., 2017. Fusing microwave and
optical satellite observations to simultaneously retrieve surface soil moisture,
vegetation water content, and surface soil roughness. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 55, 6195–6206.
Schmugge, T., 1983. Remote Sensing of soil moisture: recent advances. IEEE Trans.
Geosci. Remote Sens. GE-21, 336–344.
Schmugge, T., Gloersen, P., Wilheit, T., Geiger, F., 1974. Remote sensing of soil moisture
with microwave radiometers. J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth Planets 79, 317–323.
Schmugge, T., O’Neill, P., Wang, J.R., 1986. Passive microwave soil moisture research.
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. GE-24, 12–22.
Schnur, M., Xie, H., Wang, X., 2010. Estimating root zone soil moisture at distant sites
using MODIS NDVI and EVI in a semi-arid region of southwestern USA. Ecol. Inform.
5, 400–409.
Seneviratne, S., Corti, T., Davin, E., Hirschi, M., Jaeger, E., Lehner, I., Orlowsky, B.,
Teuling, A., 2010. Investigating soil moisture-climate interactions in changing
climate: a review. Earth Sci. Rev. 99, 125–161.
Shahriari, M., Delbari, M., Afrasiab, P., Pahlavan-Rad, M., 2019. Predicting regional
spatial distribution of soil texture in floodplains using remote sensing data: a case of
southeastern Iran. CATENA 182, 104149.
Shangguan, W., Dai, Y., Duan, Q., Liu, B., Yuan, H., 2014. A global soil data set for earth
system modeling. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 6, 249–263.
Shen, H., Li, H., Qian, Y., Zhang, L., Yuan, Q., 2014. An effective thin cloud removal
procedure for visible remote sensing images. ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens.
96, 224–235.
Shi, J., Jiang, L., Zhang, L., Chen, K., Wigneron, J., Chanzy, A., 2006a. A parameterized
multifrequency-polarization surface emission model. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 43, 2831–2841.
Shi, J., Jiang, L., Zhang, L., Chen, K., Wigneron, J., Chanzy, A., Jackson, T., 2006b.
Physically based estimation of bare-surface soil moisture with the passive
radiometers. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 44, 3145–3153.
Shiklomanov, I., 1993. World fresh water resources. In: Gleick, H. (Ed.), Water in Crisis:
A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water Resources. Oxford University Press, New York.
Sobrino, J., El Kharraz, M., 1999. Combining afternoon and morning NOAA satellites for
thermal inertia estimation: 1. Algorithm and its testing with hydrologic atmospheric
pilot experiment-Sahel data. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. 104, 9445–9453.
Sobrino, J., Gómez, M., Jiménez-Muñoz, J., Olioso, A., 2007. Application of a simple
algorithm to estimate daily evapotranspiration from NOAA-AVHRR images for the
Iberian Peninsula. Remote Sens. Environ. 110, 139–148.
Stisen, S., Sandholt, I., Nørgaard, A., Fensholt, R., Jensen, K., 2008. Combining the
triangle method with thermal inertia to estimate regional evapotranspiration applied
to MSG SEVIRI data in the Senegal River basin. Remote Sens. Environ. 112,
1242–1255.
Stogryn, A., 1970. The brightness temperature of a vertically structured medium. Radio
Sci. 5, 1397–1406.
Sun, H., 2016. Two-sage trapezoid: a new interpretation of the land surface temperature
and fractional vegetation coverage space. IEEE J. Select. Top. Appl. Earth Observ.
Remote Sens. 9, 336–346.
Susha, L., Singh, D., Baghini, M., 2014. A critical review of soil moisture measurement.
Measurement 54, 92–105.
Tabatabaeenejad, A., Chen, R., Burgin, M., Duan, X., Cuenca, R., Cosh, M., Scott, R.,
Moghaddam, M., 2020. Assessment and validation of AirMOSS P-band root-zne soil
moisture products. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 58, 6181–6196.
Tang, R., Li, Z.-L., 2017. An end-member-based two-source approach for estimating land
surface evapotranspiration from remote sensing data. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 55, 5818–5832.
Teng, W., Wang, J., Doraiswamy, P., 1993. Relationship between satellite microwave
radiometric data, antecedent precipitation index, and regional soil moisture. Int. J.
Remote Sens. 14, 2483–2500.
Touré, A., Thomson, K., Edwards, G., Brown, R., Brisco, B., 1994. Adaptation of the
MIMICS backscattering model to the agricultural context-wheat and canola at L and
C bands. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 32, 47–61.
Tsang, L., Ding, K., Huang, S., Xu, X., 2013. Electromagnetic computation in scattering of
electromagnetic waves by random rough surface and dense media in microwave
remote sensing of land surfaces. In: Proceedings of the IEEE, 101, pp. 255–279.
Tuttle, S., Salvucci, G., 2016. Empirical evidence of contrasting soil moisture-
precipitation feedbacks across the United States. Science 342, 825–828.
23
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
Ulaby, F., Aslam, A., Dobson, M., 1982. Effects of vegetation cover on the radar
sensitivity to soil moisture. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. GE-20, 476–481.
Ulaby, F., Kouyate, F., Brisco, B., Williams, T., 1986. Textural information in SAR images.
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 24, 235–245.
Ulaby, F., Sarabandi, K., McDonald, K., Whitt, M., Dobson, M., 1990. Michigan
microwave canopy scattering model. Int. J. Remote Sens. 11, 1223–1253.
Van de Griend, A., Wigneron, J., 2004. On the measurements of microwave vegetation
properties: some guidelings for a protocol. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 42,
2277–2289.
Vereecken, H., Huisman, J., Franssen, H., Brüggemann, N., Bogena, H., Kollet, S.,
Javaux, M., van der Kruk, J., Vanderborght, J., 2015. Soil hydrology: recent
methodological advances, challenges, and perspectives. Water Resour. Res. 51,
2616–2633.
Verhoef, A., 2004. Remote estimation of thermal inertia and soil heat flux for bare soil.
Agric. For. Meteorol. 123, 221–236.
Vermunt, P., Khabbazan, S., Steele-Dunne, S., Judge, J., Monsivais-Huertero, A.,
Guerriero, L., Liu, P., 2020. Response of subdaily L-band backscatter to internal and
surface canopy water dynamics. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. https://doi.org/
10.1109/TGRS.2020.3035881.
Veroustraete, F., Li, Q., Verstraeten, W., Chen, X., Bao, A., Dong, Q., Liu, T., Willems, P.,
2012. Soil moisture content retrieval based on apparent thermal inertia for Xinjiang
province in China. Int. J. Remote Sens. 33, 3870–3885.
Verstraeten, W., Veroustraete, F., Sande, C., Grootaers, I., Feyen, J., 2006. Soil moisture
retrieval using thermal inertia, determined with visible and thermal spaceborne
data, validated for European forests. Remote Sens. Environ. 101, 299–314.
Vittucci, C., Ferrazzoli, P., Kerr, Y., Richaume, P., Guerriero, L., Rahmoune, R.,
Laurin, G., 2016. SMOS retrieval over forests: exploitation of optical depth and tests
of soil moisture estimates. Remote Sens. Environ. 180, 115–127.
Wagner, W., Lemoine, G., Rott, H., 1999. A method for estimating soil moisture from ERS
scatterometer and soil data. Remote Sens. Environ. 70, 191–207.
Wang, J., Choudhury, B., 1981. Remote sensing of soil moisture content, over bare field
at 1.4 GHz frequency. J. Geophys. Res. Ocean 86, 5277–5282.
Wang, L., Qu, J., 2007. NMDI: a normalized multi-band drought index for monitoring soil
and vegetation moisture with satellite remote sensing. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34,
L20405.
Wang, L., Qu, J., 2009. Satellite remote sensing applications for surface soil moisture
monitoring: a review. Front. Earth Sci. Chin. 3, 237–247.
Wang, K., Li, Z., Cribb, M., 2006. Estimation of evaporative fraction from a combination
of day and night land surface temperatures and NDVI: a new method to determine
the Priestley-Taylor parameter. Remote Sens. Environ. 102, 293–305.
Wang, H., Magagi, R., Goϊta, K., Wang, K., 2020a. Soil moisture retrievals using ALOS2-
ScanSAR and MODIS synergy over Tibetan Plateau. Remote Sens. Environ. 251,
112100.
Wang, Y., Leng, P., Peng, J., Marzahn, P., Ludwig, R., 2020b. Global assessments of two
blended microwave soil moisture products CCI and SMOPS with in-situ
measurements and reanalysis data. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 94, 102234.
Wegmuller, U., Matzler, C., 1999. Rough bare soil reflectivity model. IEEE Trans. Geosci.
Remote Sens. 37, 1391–1395.
Wen, J., Su, Z., Ma, Y., 2003. Determination of land surface temperature and soil
moisture from Tropical Rainfall measuring mission/microwave imager remote
sensing data. J. Geophys. Res. 108 https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002176.
Wetzel, P., Atlas, D., Woodward, R., 1984. Determining soil moisture from
geosynchronous satellite infrared data: A feasibility study. J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol.
23, 375–391.
Whiting, M., Li, L., Ustin, S., 2004. Predicting water content using Gaussian model on soil
spectra. Remote Sens. Environ. 89, 535–552.
Wigneron, J., Calvet, J., Pellarin, T., Van de Griend, A., Berger, M., Ferrazzoli, P., 2003.
Retrieving near-surface soil moisture from microwave radiometric observations:
current status and future plans. Remote Sens. Environ. 85, 489–506.
Wigneron, J., Calvet, J., de Rosnay, P., Kerr, Y., Waldteufel, P., Saleh, K., Escorihuela, M.,
Kruszewski, A., 2004. Soil moisture retrievals from biangular L-band passive
microwave observations. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 1, 277–281.
Wigneron, J., Kerr, Y., Waldteufel, P., Saleh, K., Escorihuela, M., Richaume, P.,
Ferrazzoli, P., de Rosnay, P., Gurney, R., Calvet, J., Grant, J., Guglielmetti, M.,
Hornbuckle, B., Mätzler, C., Pellarin, T., Schwank, M., 2007. L-band Microwave
Emission of the Biosphere (L-MEB) model: description and calibration against
experimental data sets over crop fields. Remote Sens. Environ. 107, 639–655.
Wigneron, J., Mialon, A., De Lannoy, G., Fernandez-Moran, R., Al-Yaari, A.,
Ebrahimi, M., Rodriguez-Fernandez, N., Kerr, Y., Quets, J., Pellarin, T., 2018. SMOS-
IC: Current status and overview of soil moisture and VOD applications. In:
Proceedings of the IGARSS, pp. 1451–1453.
Wu, S., Ren, J., Chen, Z., Yang, P., Li, H., 2020. Soil moisture estimation based on the
microwave scattering mechanism during different crop phenological periods in a
winter wheat-producing region. J. Hydrol. 590, 125521.
Xiao, Z., Jiang, L., Zhu, Z., Wang, J., Du, J., 2016. Spatially and temporally complete
satellite soil moisture data based on a data assimilation method. Remote Sens. 8, 49.
Xing, M., He, B., Ni, X., Wang, J., An, G., Shang, J., Huang, X., 2019. Retrieving surface
soil moisture over wheat and soybean fields during growing season using modified
water cloud model from Radarsat-2 SAR Data. Remote Sens. 11, 1956.
Xue, Y., Cracknell, A., 1995. Advanced thermal inertia modelling. Int. J. Remote Sens.
16, 431–446.
Zeng, J., Chen, K., 2018. Theoretical study of global sensitivity analysis of L-band radar
bistatic scattering for soil moisture retrieval. IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 15,
1710–1714.
Z.-L. Li et al.
Zeng, J., Li, Z., Chen, Q., Bi, H., 2015. Method for soil moisture and surface temperature
estimation in the Tibetan Plateau using spaceborne radiometer observations. IEEE
Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett. 12, 97–101.
Zeng, J., Chen, K., Bi, H., Chen, Q., Yang, X., 2016. Radar response of off-specular bistatic
scattering to soil moisture and surface roughness at L-band. IEEE Geosci. Remote
Sens. Lett. 13, 1945–1949.
Zeng, J., Chen, K., Bi, H., Zhao, T., Yang, X., 2017. A comprehensive analysis of rough
soil surface scattering and emission predicted by AIEM with comparison to
numerical simulations and experimental measurements. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote
Sens. 55, 1696–1708.
Zhan, X., Houser, P., Walker, J., Crow, W., 2006. A method for retrieving high-resolution
surface soil moisture from Hydros L-band radiometer and radar observations. IEEE
Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 44, 1534–1544.
Zhang, D., Zhou, G., 2016. Estimation of soil moisture from optical and thermal remote
sensing: a review. Sensors 16, 1308.
Zhang, D., Tang, R., Tang, B., Wu, H., Li, Z.-L., 2015. A simple method for soil moisture
determination from LST-VI feature space using nonlinear interpolation based on
thermal infrared remotely sensed data. IEEE J. Select. Top. Appl. Earth Observ.
Remote Sens. 8, 638–648.
24
Earth-Science Reviews 218 (2021) 103673
Zhang, Z., Lan, H., Zhao, T., 2017. Detection and mitigation of radiometers
radiofrequency interference by using the local outlier factor. Remote Sens. Lett. 8,
311–319.
Zhao, W., Li, Z.-L., 2013. Sensitivity study of soil moisture on the temporal evolution of
surface temperature over bare surfaces. Int. J. Remote Sens. 34, 3314–3331.
Zhou, F., Song, X., Leng, P., Li, Z.-L., 2016. An effective emission depth model for passive
microwave remote sensing. IEEE J. Select. Top. Appl. Earth Observ. Remote Sens. 9,
1752–1760.
Zribi, M., Dechambre, M., 2002. A new empirical model to retrieve soil moisture and
roughness from C-band radar data. Remote Sens. Environ. 84, 42–52.
Zribi, M., Baghdadi, N., Holah, N., Fafin, O., 2005. New methodology for soil surface
moisture estimation and its application to ENVISAT-ASAR multi-incidence data
inversion. Remote Sens. Environ. 96, 485–496.
Zribi, M., Anguela, T., Duchemin, B., Lili, Z., Wagner, W., Hasenauer, S., Chehbouni, A.,
2010. Relationship between soil moisture and vegetation in the Kairouan plain
region of Tunisia using low spatial resolution satellite data. Water Resour. Res. 46,
W06508.