Mapping surface soil moisture with L-band radiometric measurements

A NASA C-130 airborne remote sensing aircraft was used to obtain four-beam pushbroom microwave radiometric measurements over two small Kansas tall-grass prairie region watersheds, during a dry-down period after heavy rainfall in May and June, 1987. While one of the watersheds had been burned 2 months before these measurements, the other had not been burned for over a year. Surface soil-moisture data were collected at the time of the aircraft measurements and correlated with the corresponding radiometric measurements, establishing a relationship for surface soil-moisture mapping. Radiometric sensitivity to soil moisture variation is higher in the burned than in the unburned watershed; surface soil moisture loss is also faster in the burned watershed.