403-5 A Physically-Based Model for Optical Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture.

See more from this Division: SSSA Division: Soil Physics and Hydrology
See more from this Session: Remote Sensing of Soil Water: Soil Moisture Active Passive and Beyond

Wednesday, November 18, 2015: 2:50 PM
Minneapolis Convention Center, L100 F

Morteza Sadeghi and Scott B. Jones, Department of Plants, Soils and Climate, Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract:
In this paper, we present a physically-based model to retrieve soil moisture from optical images (400 – 2500 nm). The model was derived based on a simple two-flux radiative transfer model describing diffuse reflectance from a uniform, optically thick, absorbing and scattering medium. This model indicates an unprecedented linear relationship between a transformed reflectance and surface soil moisture in the shortwave infrared bands (e.g. bands 6 and 7 of Landsat 8) providing an easy-to-use algorithm in these bands. Accuracy of this model was tested and preliminarily verified using laboratory-measured spectral reflectance data of several different soils. Further studies on potentials and challenges of this algorithm for large-scale application using optical satellite (e.g. Landsat, MODIS) data remains a goal of future research.

See more from this Division: SSSA Division: Soil Physics and Hydrology
See more from this Session: Remote Sensing of Soil Water: Soil Moisture Active Passive and Beyond