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Abstract The ability of spaceborne Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) bistatic radar receivers to sense changes in soil moisture is investigated using observations from the low Earth orbiting UK TechDemoSat‐1 satellite (TDS‐1). Previous studies using receivers on aircraft or towers have shown that ground‐reflected GNSS signals are sensitive to changes in soil moisture, though the ability to sense this variable from space has yet to be quantified. Data from TDS‐1 show a 7 dB sensitivity of reflected signals to temporal changes in soil moisture. If the effects of surface roughness and vegetation on the reflected signals can be quantified, spaceborne GNSS bistatic radar receivers could provide soil moisture on relatively small spatial and temporal scales.
Chew et al. (2016) studied this question.