Multitemporal RADARSAT Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery was evaluated for monitoring soil moisture during the Southern Great Plains 1997 Hydrology Experiment (SGP97). Over the 1-month experiment a total of 10 RADARSAT (C-band; 5.3GHz; HH polarized) acquisitions were obtained. After co-registration of the images, the dependence of the backscattering coefficient (σ) on incidence angle (θ) was evaluated. An angular correction scheme was applied to the data and the correlation of a values with volumetric soil moisture measurements was determined. A high positive correlation between the two was observed for wheat stubble fields, whereas no correlation could be observed for pasture fields. A change detection approach yielded a correlation of soil moisture changes to σ changes for wheat stubble fields, indicating the potential of this method for soil moisture monitoring.
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Wickel et al. (2001) studied this question.