Ground, Proximal, and Satellite Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture

• Published in: Reviews of geophysics (1985) Vol. 57; no. 2; pp. 530 - 616
• Main Authors: Babaeian, Ebrahim, Sadeghi, Morteza, Jones, Scott B., Montzka, Carsten, Vereecken, Harry, Tuller, Markus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2019
• Subjects: Agricultural management; Atmospheric particulates; Carbon cycle; Climate and human activity; Climate Change; Climate variability; Disasters; Drought; Drought conditions; Dust storms; Earth; Ecological monitoring; Electromagnetic Sensors; Emergency preparedness; Environmental impact; Environmental management; Environmental science; Famine; Food security; Hydrology; Information management; Landslides; Natural disasters; Plant production; Proximal Sensing; Remote Sensing; Remote sensing techniques; Resource allocation; Retrieval; Sensing techniques; Soil; Soil Moisture; State variable; Storms; Sustainable development; Technology assessment; Water resources; Water resources management; Weather forecasting; Wildfires
• ISSN: 8755-1209; 1944-9208
• DOI: 10.1029/2018RG000618

Soil moisture (SM) is a key hydrologic state variable that is of significant importance for numerous Earth and environmental science applications that directly impact the global environment and human society. Potential applications include, but are not limited to, forecasting of weather and climate variability; prediction and monitoring of drought conditions; management and allocation of water resources; agricultural plant production and alleviation of famine; prevention of natural disasters such as wild fires, landslides, floods, and dust storms; or monitoring of ecosystem response to climate change. Because of the importance and wide‐ranging applicability of highly variable spatial and temporal SM information that links the water, energy, and carbon cycles, significant efforts and resources have been devoted in recent years to advance SM measurement and monitoring capabilities from the point to the global scales. This review encompasses recent advances and the state‐of‐the‐art of ground, proximal, and novel SM remote sensing techniques at various spatial and temporal scales and identifies critical future research needs and directions to further advance and optimize technology, analysis and retrieval methods, and the application of SM information to improve the understanding of critical zone moisture dynamics. Despite the impressive progress over the last decade, there are still many opportunities and needs to, for example, improve SM retrieval from remotely sensed optical, thermal, and microwave data and opportunities for novel applications of SM information for water resources management, sustainable environmental development, and food security.
Key Points
Recent soil moisture measurement and monitoring techniques and estimation models from the point to the global scales and their limitations are presented
The importance and application of soil moisture information for various Earth and environmental sciences disciplines such as forecasting weather and climate variability, modeling hydrological processes, and predicting and monitoring extreme events and their impacts on the environment and human society are presented