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New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission
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New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 29050

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Amen Al-Yaari

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
INRA Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Villenave-d'Ornon, France
Interests: soil moisture; microwave remote sensing; hydrology; vegetation water content; climate; agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Arnaud Mialon

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CESBIO, CNES/CNRS/IRD/UPS, UMR 5126, 31401 Toulouse, CEDEX 9, France
Interests: surface soil moisture; SMOS; L-VOD; passive microwave
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Surface soil moisture (the water content in the first centimeters of soil) is an essential climate variable that plays an important role in land–atmosphere interactions. Soil moisture is widely used in improving climate model predictions/projections, weather forecasting, drought monitoring, rainfall estimations, etc.

Monitoring surface soil moisture at a global scale has recently become possible thanks to microwave remote sensing. SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) was the first dedicated soil moisture mission that has been in orbit for eight years. The SMOS satellite was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2009, carrying on board a radiometer in the L-band frequency with a spatial resolution of ~43 km. Since then, soil moisture and vegetation optical depth (VOD) have been retrieved from multi-angular brightness temperature observations relying mainly on a radiative transfer model. 

This is a dedicated Special Issue on SMOS. We welcome studies on all subjects that are related to the SMOS satellite and its products.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • the improvements in the soil moisture/VOD retrieval algorithms;
  • the evaluation/validation of the SMOS soil moisture and VOD products;
  • SMOS synergy with other remote sensing observations or models simulations;
  • SMOS soil moisture/VOD applications for agriculture, hydrology, etc.

Dr. Amen Al-Yaari
Dr. Arnaud Mialon
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • SMOS
  • Soil moisture
  • Validation
  • Application
  • Synergy

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

28 pages, 6137 KiB  
Article
Analyzing Spatio-Temporal Factors to Estimate the Response Time between SMOS and In-Situ Soil Moisture at Different Depths
by Christoph Herbert, Miriam Pablos, Mercè Vall-llossera, Adriano Camps and José Martínez-Fernández
Remote Sens. 2020, 12(16), 2614; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12162614 - 13 Aug 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3443
Abstract
A comprehensive understanding of temporal variability of subsurface soil moisture (SM) is paramount in hydrological and agricultural applications such as rainfed farming and irrigation. Since the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission was launched in 2009, globally available satellite SM retrievals have [...] Read more.
A comprehensive understanding of temporal variability of subsurface soil moisture (SM) is paramount in hydrological and agricultural applications such as rainfed farming and irrigation. Since the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission was launched in 2009, globally available satellite SM retrievals have been used to investigate SM dynamics, based on the fact that useful information about subsurface SM is contained in their time series. SM along the depth profile is influenced by atmospheric forcing and local SM properties. Until now, subsurface SM was estimated by weighting preceding information of remotely sensed surface SM time series according to an optimized depth-specific characteristic time length. However, especially in regions with extreme SM conditions, the response time is supposed to be seasonally variable and depends on related processes occurring at different timescales. Aim of this study was to quantify the response time by means of the time lag between the trend series of satellite and in-situ SM observations using a Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) technique. DTW was applied to the SMOS satellite SM L4 product at 1 km resolution developed by the Barcelona Expert Center (BEC), and in-situ near-surface and root-zone SM of four representative stations at multiple depths, located in the Soil Moisture Measurements Station Network of the University of Salamanca (REMEDHUS) in Western Spain. DTW was customized to control the rate of accumulation and reduction of time lag during wetting and drying conditions and to consider the onset dates of pronounced precipitation events to increase sensitivity to prominent features of the input series. The temporal variability of climate factors in combination with crop growing seasons were used to indicate prevailing SM-related processes. Hereby, a comparison of long-term precipitation recordings and estimations of potential evapotranspiration (PET) allowed us to estimate SM seasons. The spatial heterogeneity of land use was analyzed by means of high-resolution images of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from Sentinel-2 to provide information about the level of spatial representativeness of SMOS observations to each in-situ station. Results of the spatio-temporal analysis of the study were then evaluated to understand seasonally and spatially changing patterns in time lag. The time lag evolution describes a variable characteristic time length by considering the relevant processes which link SMOS and in-situ SM observation, which is an important step to accurately infer subsurface SM from satellite time series. At a further stage, the approach needs to be applied to different SM networks to understand the seasonal, climate- and site-specific characteristic behaviour of time lag and to decide, whether general conclusions can be drawn. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission)
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21 pages, 3511 KiB  
Article
Can We Use Satellite-Based Soil-Moisture Products at High Resolution to Investigate Land-Use Differences and Land–Atmosphere Interactions? A Case Study in the Savanna
by Carlos Román-Cascón, Marie Lothon, Fabienne Lohou, Nitu Ojha, Olivier Merlin, David Aragonés, María P. González-Dugo, Ana Andreu, Thierry Pellarin, Aurore Brut, Ramón C. Soriguer, Ricardo Díaz-Delgado, Oscar Hartogensis and Carlos Yagüe
Remote Sens. 2020, 12(11), 1701; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12111701 - 26 May 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3711
Abstract
The use of soil moisture (SM) measurements from satellites has grown in recent years, fostering the development of new products at high resolution. This opens the possibility of using them for certain applications that were normally carried out using in situ data. We [...] Read more.
The use of soil moisture (SM) measurements from satellites has grown in recent years, fostering the development of new products at high resolution. This opens the possibility of using them for certain applications that were normally carried out using in situ data. We investigated this hypothesis through two main analyses using two high-resolution satellite-based soil moisture (SBSM) products that combined microwave with thermal and optical data: (1) The Disaggregation based on Physical And Theoretical scale Change (DISPATCH) and, (2) The Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity-Barcelona Expert Center (SMOS-BEC Level 4). We used these products to analyse the SM differences among pixels with contrasting vegetation. This was done through the comparison of the SM measurements from satellites and the measurements simulated with a simple antecedent precipitation index (API) model, which did not account for the surface characteristics. Subsequently, the deviation of the SM from satellite with respect to the API model (bias) was analysed and compared for contrasting land use categories. We hypothesised that the differences in the biases of the varied categories could provide information regarding the water retention capacity associated with each type of vegetation. From the satellite measurements, we determined how the SM depended on the tree cover, i.e., the denser the tree cover, the higher the SM. However, in winter periods with light rain events, the tree canopy could dampen the moistening of the soil through interception and conducted higher SM in the open areas. This evolution of the SM differences that depended on the characteristics of each season was observed both from satellite and from in situ measurements taken beneath a tree and in grass on the savanna landscape. The agreement between both types of measurements highlighted the potential of the SBSM products to investigate the SM of each type of vegetation. We found that the results were clearer for DISPATCH, whose data was not smoothed spatially as it was in SMOS-BEC. We also tested whether the relationships between SM and evapotranspiration could be investigated using satellite data. The answer to this question was also positive but required removing the unrealistic high-frequency SM oscillations from the satellite data using a low pass filter. This improved the performance scores of the products and the agreement with the results from the in situ data. These results demonstrated the possibility of using SM data from satellites to substitute ground measurements for the study of land–atmosphere interactions, which encourages efforts to improve the quality and resolution of these measurements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission)
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17 pages, 8981 KiB  
Article
The Precipitation Inferred from Soil Moisture (PrISM) Near Real-Time Rainfall Product: Evaluation and Comparison
by Thierry Pellarin, Carlos Román-Cascón, Christian Baron, Rajat Bindlish, Luca Brocca, Pierre Camberlin, Diego Fernández-Prieto, Yann H. Kerr, Christian Massari, Geremy Panthou, Benoit Perrimond, Nathalie Philippon and Guillaume Quantin
Remote Sens. 2020, 12(3), 481; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12030481 - 3 Feb 2020
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 6305
Abstract
Near real-time precipitation is essential to many applications. In Africa, the lack of dense rain-gauge networks and ground weather radars makes the use of satellite precipitation products unavoidable. Despite major progresses in estimating precipitation rate from remote sensing measurements over the past decades, [...] Read more.
Near real-time precipitation is essential to many applications. In Africa, the lack of dense rain-gauge networks and ground weather radars makes the use of satellite precipitation products unavoidable. Despite major progresses in estimating precipitation rate from remote sensing measurements over the past decades, satellite precipitation products still suffer from quantitative uncertainties and biases compared to ground data. Consequently, almost all precipitation products are provided in two modes: a real-time mode (also called early-run or raw product) and a corrected mode (also called final-run, adjusted or post-processed product) in which ground precipitation measurements are integrated in algorithms to correct for bias, generally at a monthly timescale. This paper describes a new methodology to provide a near-real-time precipitation product based on satellite precipitation and soil moisture measurements. Recent studies have shown that soil moisture intrinsically contains information on past precipitation and can be used to correct precipitation uncertainties. The PrISM (Precipitation inferred from Soil Moisture) methodology is presented and its performance is assessed for five in situ rainfall measurement networks located in Africa in semi-arid to wet areas: Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central Africa, and East Africa. Results show that the use of SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) satellite soil moisture measurements in the PrISM algorithm most often improves the real-time satellite precipitation products, and provides results comparable to existing adjusted products, such as TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission), GPCC (Global Precipitation Climatology Centre) and IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM), which are available a few weeks or months after their detection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission)
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25 pages, 7990 KiB  
Article
Estimating Root Zone Soil Moisture Across the Eastern United States with Passive Microwave Satellite Data and a Simple Hydrologic Model
by Douglas Baldwin, Salvatore Manfreda, Henry Lin and Erica A.H. Smithwick
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(17), 2013; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11172013 - 27 Aug 2019
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 6173
Abstract
Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) affects many natural processes and is an important component of environmental modeling, but it is expensive and challenging to monitor for relatively small spatial extents. Satellite datasets offer ample spatial coverage of near-surface soil moisture content at up [...] Read more.
Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) affects many natural processes and is an important component of environmental modeling, but it is expensive and challenging to monitor for relatively small spatial extents. Satellite datasets offer ample spatial coverage of near-surface soil moisture content at up to a daily time-step, but satellite-derived data products are currently too coarse in spatial resolution to use directly for many environmental applications, such as those for small catchments. This study investigated the use of passive microwave satellite soil moisture data products in a simple hydrologic model to provide root zone soil moisture estimates across a small catchment over a two year time period and the Eastern U.S. (EUS) at a 1 km resolution over a decadal time-scale. The physically based soil moisture analytical relationship (SMAR) was calibrated and tested with the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSRE), Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS), and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) data products. The SMAR spatial model relies on maps of soil physical properties and was first tested at the Shale Hills experimental catchment in central Pennsylvania. The model met a root mean square error (RMSE) benchmark of 0.06 cm3 cm−3 at 66% of the locations throughout the catchment. Then, the SMAR spatial model was calibrated at up to 68 sites (SCAN and AMERIFLUX network sites) that monitor soil moisture across the EUS region, and maps of SMAR parameters were generated for each satellite data product. The average RMSE for RZSM estimates from each satellite data product is <0.06 cm3 cm−3. Lastly, the 1 km EUS regional RZSM maps were tested with data from the Shale Hills, which was set aside for validating the regional SMAR, and the RMSE between the RZSM predictions and the catchment average is 0.042 cm3 cm−3. This study offers a promising approach for generating long time-series of regional RZSM maps with the same spatial resolution of soil property maps. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission)
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Graphical abstract

16 pages, 4764 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Soil Moisture Variability in Poland from SMOS Satellite Observations
by Bogusław Usowicz, Jerzy Lipiec and Mateusz Lukowski
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(11), 1280; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11111280 - 29 May 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3367
Abstract
Soil moisture (SM) data play an important role in agriculture, hydrology, and climate sciences. In this study, we examined the spatial-temporal variability of soil moisture using Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite measurements for Poland from a five-year period (2010–2014). SMOS L2 v. [...] Read more.
Soil moisture (SM) data play an important role in agriculture, hydrology, and climate sciences. In this study, we examined the spatial-temporal variability of soil moisture using Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite measurements for Poland from a five-year period (2010–2014). SMOS L2 v. 551 datasets (latitudinal rectangle 1600 × 840 km, centered in Poland) averaged for quarterly (three months corresponding to winter, spring, summer, and autumn) and yearly values were used. The results were analysed with the use of classical statistics and geostatistics (using semivariograms) to acquire information about the nature of anisotropy and the lengths and directions of spatial dependences. The minimum (close to zero) and maximum soil moisture values covered the 0.5 m3 m−3 range. In particular quarters, average soil moisture did not exceed 0.2 m3 m−3 and did not drop below 0.12 m3 m−3; the corresponding values in the study years were 0.171 m3 m−3 and 0.128 m3 m−3. The highest variability of SM occurred generally in winter (coefficient of variation, CV, up to 40%) and the lowest value was recorded in spring (around 23%). The average CV for all years was 32%. The quarterly maximum (max) soil moisture contents were well positively correlated with the average soil moisture contents (R2 = 0.63). Most of the soil moisture distributions (histograms) were close to normal distribution and asymmetric data were transformed with the square root to facilitate geostatistical analysis. Isotropic and anisotropic empirical semivariograms were constructed and the theoretical exponential models were well fitted (R2 > 0.9). In general, the structural dependence of the semivariance was strong and moderate. The nugget (C0) values slightly deceased with increasing soil moisture while the sills (C0 + C) increased. The effective ranges of spatial dependence (A) were between 1° and 4° (110–440 km of linear distance). Generally, the ranges were greater for drier than moist soils. Anisotropy of the SM distribution exhibited different orientation with predominance from north-west to south-east in winter and spring and changed for from north-east to south-west or from north to south in the other seasons. The fractal dimension values showed that the distribution of the soil moisture pattern was less diverse (smoother) in the winter and spring, compared to that in the summer and autumn. The soil moisture maps showed occurrence of wet areas (soil moisture > 0.25 m3 m−3) in the north-eastern, south-eastern and western parts and dry areas (soil moisture < 0.05 m3 m−3) mainly in the central part (oriented towards the south) of Poland. The spatial distribution of SM was attributed to soil texture patterns and associated with water holding capacity and permeability. The results will help undertake appropriate steps to minimize susceptibility to drought and flooding in different regions of Poland. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission)
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22 pages, 3770 KiB  
Article
The AQUI Soil Moisture Network for Satellite Microwave Remote Sensing Validation in South-Western France
by A. Al-Yaari, S. Dayau, C. Chipeaux, C. Aluome, A. Kruszewski, D. Loustau and J.-P. Wigneron
Remote Sens. 2018, 10(11), 1839; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10111839 - 20 Nov 2018
Cited by 27 | Viewed by 5095
Abstract
Global soil moisture (SM) products are currently available thanks to microwave remote sensing techniques. Validation of these satellite-based SM products over different vegetation and climate conditions is a crucial step. INRA (National Institute of Agricultural Research) has set up the AQUI SM and [...] Read more.
Global soil moisture (SM) products are currently available thanks to microwave remote sensing techniques. Validation of these satellite-based SM products over different vegetation and climate conditions is a crucial step. INRA (National Institute of Agricultural Research) has set up the AQUI SM and soil temperature in situ network (composed of three main sites Bouron, Bilos, and Hermitage), over a flat area of dense pine forests, in South-Western France (the Bordeaux–Aquitaine region) to validate the Soil Moisture and Ocean salinity (SMOS) satellite SM products. SMOS was launched in 2009 by the European Space Agency (ESA). The aims of this study are to present the AQUI network and to evaluate the SMOS SM product (in the new SMOS-IC version) along with other microwave SM products such as the active ASCAT (Advanced Scatterometer) and the ESA combined (passive and active) CCI (Climate Change Initiative) SM retrievals. A first comparison, using Pearson correlation, Bias, RMSE (Root Mean Square Error), and Un biased RMSE (ubRMSE) scores, between the 0–5 cm AQUI network and ASCAT, CCI, and SMOS SM products was conducted. In general all the three products were able to reproduce the annual cycle of the AQUI in situ observations. CCI and ASCAT had best and similar correlations (R~0.72) over the Bouron and Bilos sites. All had comparable correlations over the Hermitage sites with overall average values of 0.74, 0.68, and 0.69 for CCI, SMOS-IC, and ASCAT, respectively. Considering anomalies, correlation values decreased for all products with best ability to capture day to day variations obtained by ASCAT. CCI (followed by SMOS-IC) had the best ubRMSE values (mostly < 0.04 m3/m3) over most of the stations. Although the region is highly impacted by radio frequency interferences, SMOS-IC followed correctly the in situ SM dynamics. All the three remotely-sensed SM products (except SMOS-IC over some stations) overestimated the AQUI in situ SM observations. These results demonstrate that the AQUI network is likely to be well-suited for satellite microwave remote sensing evaluations/validations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Outstanding Results over Land from the SMOS Mission)
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