NOTE: There is an annotated and voiced narrative version of this presentation that will be released at a future date. This single file PDF version of a slide deck presentation was delivered on the afternoon Friday 03 April 2026 at the Annual Nevada NASA and SPACE GRANT EPSCoR Statewide Meeting held at the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA in a student union ballroom. It was co-presented by Professor of Atmospheric Physics Dr. Marco Giordano and Professor of Soil Physics Dr. Markus Berli. There is a narrated version of this presentation to be released at a future date. The basics of the presentation talked through the essential problem of determining near surface soil moisture (nSSM) by passive remote means in a favorable temporal and geospatial footprint. This method improves upon satellite scaling and is more comparable to in-ground field measurement, with greater coverage in a shorter time. The problem of resolving an appropriate scaling to approach the problem was emphasized. Key significance was emphasized that this approach is for meter squared footprints and providing direct connection to NASA's NISAR instrument but on at will temporal measurement episodes. The presenters spoke on the fundamentals of the relationship between factors influencing the earth's surface microwave emissivity, measurable brightness temperature (TB), surface roughness and soil moisture content. The details of the functionality of the dual-plate dual orthogonal polarized microwave antenna and the passive measurement scheme were presented. The presenters connected the aspects of signal reception, data reduction, signal processing, and strategies employed for georeferencing processed brightness temperatures (TB) to a geotagged basemap. It was emphasized for the scale of problem this can be a considerable portion of UAS-borne instrument studies. Preliminary first release of results from a controlled experimental field test on Sunday 23Novemeber 2025 were presented as proof-of-concept and workflow development. The released remote sensing results directly compared the retrieved and geotagged soil moisture map with laboratory gravimetric analysis of specific ground points. The available results compared favorably between the L-Band soil moisture and the simultaneous ground- truth values. The relative insufficiency of in-ground data made statistical metrics not viable to calculate for correlative purposes. The presenters made direct assertions on the pathways forward for future work necessary to improve both data processing and analysis and workflows to achieve desired scientific outcomes and the technological and instrumental refinements necessary to collect "better data for better science". Background, goal and objectives Soil moisture data is essential for water resources management, assessing vegetation health as well as reducing wildfire and flood risks in semi-arid environments such as Nevada. Currently, soil moisture is either measured with soil moisture probes (Figure 1a) on the ground and at the centimeter to meter-scale or by satellite-based remote sensing (e.g., with NASA SMAP or ESA SMOS satellites, Figure 1b) at the kilometer to continental scale. For the hydrologically-important intermediate scale (meter to kilometer) there is currently no established method for measuring soil moisture. NOTE: figure 1 is as an attached file included in this document. A need for hydrological scientists to quantify detailed aspects of soil moisture variability is the focus of this proposal. The ground surface conditions are altered by the severity of the wildfire surface burn (and other states of the ground-air interface system), which in-turn alter the rate and depth of water penetration depth from precipitation events. Run-off and surface infiltration have strong connections to post wildfire plant species growth and recovery, and surface geomorphologic responses such as landslide. UAS-borne L-Band radiometry can bridge the gap between point source in-ground volumetric soil moisture measurement values and those from satellite instruments with greater geospatial domain, but diminished temporal resolution. This sub-study is to make progress in technological, methodological, and scientific aspects of the need to accurately determine near surface soil moisture and the local scale geophysical variables which influence its seasonality. Acknowledgement: the authors would express their gratitude to the Nevada State Office of Sponsored Programs Division of Research, and its individual staff members for arranging and hosting the annual statewide meeting. To the Nevada State Space Grant and NASA EPSCoR director Professor Dr. Eric M. Wilcox for inviting us to present at his annual meeting, and for securing federal and state funding for the research infrastructure development sub-awards within the state of Nevada. Lastly, we wish to give great thanks to our dedicated scientific colleagues who reviewed our proposal, offered insightful review feedback, and voted to grant our award.
Giordano et al. (Fri,) studied this question.