Analysing the temporal and spatial dynamics of surface soil moisture using SAR data and process based modelling
within the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 32
Project Staff:
Prof. Dr. Karl Schneider (Chair, Modelling & Remote Sensing)
Dr. Wolfgang Korres (Cioordination, Field Measurements & Modelling Soil Hydrology)
Dr. Tim G. Reichenau (Modelling)
Dipl.-Geogr. Sabrina Esch (Field Measurements & Radar Remote Sensing)
Project period: 2015- 2018
Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 32 -
Pattern in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Systems: Monitoring, Modelling, and Data Assimilation
The Transregio 32 works on exchange processes between the soil, vegetation and the adjacent atmospheric boundary layer. The overall research goal is to yield improved numerical models for the prediction of water-, CO2- and energy-transfer by accounting for the patterns occurring at various scales. See also a short summary of the full project and the summaries of the sub-projects below.
Project section:
C3:
Analysing the temporal and spatial dynamics of surface soil moisture using SAR data and process based modelling
Understanding the temporal and spatial patterns of soil moisture at different scales is important for applied tasks such as water and agricultural management, as well as for basic research e.g. improvement of large scale models. The general goals of the sub-project C3 are to improve our understanding of the temporal and spatial patterns of soil moisture at different scales, to diagnose the driving processes, which explain these patterns and their temporal dynamics, and to analyze the effects of soil moisture heterogeneity upon carbon and water fluxes. We pursue these goals by integrating remote sensing and process based modeling. SAR images from ERS, ENVISAT and ALOS were used in the first two phases used to derive surface soil moisture patterns. With the launch of new polarimetric SAR systems from 2014 onwards, the frequency of high quality polarimetric C- and L-band SAR observations will improve strongly. The combination of the different systems will provide a repetition rate suitable (at least at times) to directly monitor the temporal development of surface soil moisture patterns. In 2015 three, from 2016 onwards four, polarimetric C-band (RADARSAT-2, SENTINEL-1 A/B) and L-band (ALOS-2, SMAP, SAOCOM A/B) systems will be in orbit. The ecohydrological model DANUBIA is used to derive vegetation status (biomass, water content in plants, phenology) for radar model inversion. Furthermore, DANUBIA is used to analyze soil moisture patterns, scaling behaviour and cause and effect relationships with respect to agricultural management, plant growth and soil moisture dynamics. Based upon these analyses and our understanding of surface soil moisture patterns and scaling properties our task will provide input to further parameterize processes in the Community Land Model (CLM) commonly used by the TR32.
Further information and publications can be found on the TR-32 web site TR32
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)