Estimation of Vegetation Water Content From the Radar Vegetation Index at L-Band

—Information on vegetation water content (VWC) is important in retrieving soil moisture using microwave remote sensing. It can be also used for other applications, including drought detection, bushfire prediction, and agricultural productivity assessment. Through the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, radar data may potentially provide the VWC information needed for soil moisture retrieval from the radiometer data acquired by the same satellite. In this paper, VWC estimation is tested using radar vegetation index (RVI) data from the third SMAP airborne Experiment. Comparing with coincident ground measurements, prediction equations for wheat and pasture were developed. While a good relationship was found for wheat, with r = 0.49, 0.62, and 0.65 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) = 0.42, 0.37, and 0.36 kg/m2 , the relationship for pasture was poor, with r = −0.06, −0.14, and − 0.002 and RMSE = 0.15, 0.15, and 0.15, kg...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: TGRS
• Authors: Yuancheng Huang, Jeffrey P. Walker, Ying Gao, Xiaoling Wu, Alessandra Monerris
• Keywords: TGRS 2016