Bistatic scatterometer monitoring of soil moisture by microwave remote sensing at X-band

Abstract

Soil moisture is important for irrigation planning, as well as in forecast the risk of flash floods, or the occurrence of fog. Measurement of scattering coefficient σ0 of a bare soil was performed by changing the soil moisture content by using the X-band (9.5 GHz) scatter meter. These experiments were conducted over a range of incidence angle from 20° to 70° at step of 5° for both the vertical–vertical (VV) and horizontal–horizontal (HH) polarization. The emissivity is observed by measuring the reflectivity from the microwave system. Results show a good angular variation of emissitivity in both the polarization with soil moisture. An idea was developed by using incidence angles as a modulating factor for retrieving the soil moisture at X-band.