scholarly journals Towards Estimating Land Evaporation at Field Scales Using GLEAM

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brecht Martens ◽  
Richard de Jeu ◽  
Niko Verhoest ◽  
Hanneke Schuurmans ◽  
Jonne Kleijer ◽  
...  

The evaporation of water from land into the atmosphere is a key component of the hydrological cycle. Accurate estimates of this flux are essential for proper water management and irrigation scheduling. However, continuous and qualitative information on land evaporation is currently not available at the required spatio-temporal scales for agricultural applications and regional-scale water management. Here, we apply the Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) at 100 m spatial resolution and daily time steps to provide estimates of land evaporation over The Netherlands, Flanders, and western Germany for the period 2013–2017. By making extensive use of microwave-based geophysical observations, we are able to provide data under all weather conditions. The soil moisture estimates from GLEAM at high resolution compare well with in situ measurements of surface soil moisture, resulting in a median temporal correlation coefficient of 0.76 across 29 sites. Estimates of terrestrial evaporation are also evaluated using in situ eddy-covariance measurements from five sites, and compared to estimates from the coarse-scale GLEAM v3.2b, land evaporation from the Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF), and reference grass evaporation based on Makkink’s equation. All datasets compare similarly with in situ measurements and differences in the temporal statistics are small, with correlation coefficients against in situ data ranging from 0.65 to 0.95, depending on the site. Evaporation estimates from GLEAM-HR are typically bounded by the high values of the Makkink evaporation and the low values from LSA-SAF. While GLEAM-HR and LSA-SAF show the highest spatial detail, their geographical patterns diverge strongly due to differences in model assumptions, model parameterizations, and forcing data. The separate consideration of rainfall interception loss by tall vegetation in GLEAM-HR is a key cause of this divergence: while LSA-SAF reports maximum annual evaporation volumes in the Green Heart of The Netherlands, an area dominated by shrubs and grasses, GLEAM-HR shows its maximum in the national parks of the Veluwe and Heuvelrug, both densely-forested regions where rainfall interception loss is a dominant process. The pioneering dataset presented here is unique in that it provides observational-based estimates at high resolution under all weather conditions, and represents a viable alternative to traditional visible and infrared models to retrieve evaporation at field scales.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Fan ◽  
A. Al-Yaari ◽  
Frédéric Frappart ◽  
Jennifer Swenson ◽  
Qing Xiao ◽  
...  

Hydro-agricultural applications often require surface soil moisture (SM) information at high spatial resolutions. In this study, daily spatial patterns of SM at a spatial resolution of 1 km over the Babao River Basin in northwestern China were mapped using a Bayesian-based upscaling algorithm, which upscaled point-scale measurements to the grid-scale (1 km) by retrieving SM information using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived land surface temperature (LST) and topography data (including aspect and elevation data) and in situ measurements from a wireless sensor network (WSN). First, the time series of pixel-scale (1 km) representative SM information was retrieved from in situ measurements of SM, topography data, and LST. Second, Bayesian linear regression was used to calibrate the relationship between the representative SM and the WSN measurements. Last, the calibrated relationship was used to upscale a network of in situ measured SM to map spatially continuous SM at a high resolution. The upscaled SM data were evaluated against ground-based SM measurements with satisfactory accuracy—the overall correlation coefficient (r), slope, and unbiased root mean square difference (ubRMSD) values were 0.82, 0.61, and 0.025 m3/m3, respectively. Moreover, when accounting for topography, the proposed upscaling algorithm outperformed the algorithm based only on SM derived from LST (r = 0.80, slope = 0.31, and ubRMSD = 0.033 m3/m3). Notably, the proposed upscaling algorithm was able to capture the dynamics of SM under extreme dry and wet conditions. In conclusion, the proposed upscaled method can provide accurate high-resolution SM estimates for hydro-agricultural applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 473-495
Author(s):  
Rogier van der Velde ◽  
Andreas Colliander ◽  
Michiel Pezij ◽  
Harm-Jan F. Benninga ◽  
Rajat Bindlish ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Twente region in the east of the Netherlands has a network with 20 soil monitoring stations that has been utilized for validation of the Soil Moisture Active/Passive (SMAP) passive-only soil moisture products. Over the period from April 2015 until December 2018, seven stations covered by the SMAP reference pixels have fairly complete data records. Spatially distributed soil moisture simulations with the Dutch National Hydrological Model have been utilized for the development of upscaling functions to translate the spatial mean of point measurements to the domain of the SMAP reference pixels. The native and upscaled spatial soil moisture means computed using the in situ measurements have been adopted as references to assess the performance of the SMAP (i) Single Channel Algorithm at Horizontal Polarization (SCA-H), (ii) Single Channel Algorithm at Vertical Polarization (SCA-V), and (iii) Dual Channel Algorithm (DCA) soil moisture estimates. In the case of the Twente network it was found that the SCA-V SMAP soil moisture observations collected in the afternoon had the best agreement with the native spatial mean, leading to an unbiased root mean squared error (uRMSE) of 0.059 m3 m−3, whereas for the upscaled in situ references primarily larger biases were found. These error levels are larger than the mission's target accuracy of 0.04 m3 m−3, which can be attributed to large over- and under-estimation errors (>0.08 m3 m−3), in particular at the end of dry spells and during freezing, respectively. The strong vertical dielectric gradients associated with rapid soil freezing and wetting cause the disparity in soil depth characterized by SMAP and in situ that leads to the large mismatches. Once filtered for frozen conditions and antecedent rainfall, the uRMSE improves to 0.043 m3 m−3.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Jian Kang ◽  
Rui Jin ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Yang Zhang

In recent decades, microwave remote sensing (RS) has been used to measure soil moisture (SM). Long-term and large-scale RS SM datasets derived from various microwave sensors have been used in environmental fields. Understanding the accuracies of RS SM products is essential for their proper applications. However, due to the mismatched spatial scale between the ground-based and RS observations, the truth at the pixel scale may not be accurately represented by ground-based observations, especially when the spatial density of in situ measurements is low. Because ground-based observations are often sparsely distributed, temporal upscaling was adopted to transform a few in situ measurements into SM values at a pixel scale of 1 km by introducing the temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) related to SM. The upscaled SM showed high consistency with in situ SM observations and could accurately capture rainfall events. The upscaled SM was considered as the reference data to evaluate RS SM products at different spatial scales. In regard to the validation results, in addition to the correlation coefficient (R) of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) SM being slightly lower than that of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) SM, SMAP had the best performance in terms of the root-mean-square error (RMSE), unbiased RMSE and bias, followed by the CCI. The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) products were in worse agreement with the upscaled SM and were inferior to the R value of the X-band SM of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2). In conclusion, in the study area, the SMAP and CCI SM are more reliable, although both products were underestimated by 0.060 cm3 cm−3 and 0.077 cm3 cm−3, respectively. If the biases are corrected, then the improved SMAP with an RMSE of 0.043 cm3 cm−3 and the CCI with an RMSE of 0.039 cm3 cm−3 will hopefully reach the application requirement for an accuracy with an RMSE less than 0.040 cm3 cm−3.


2005 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 182-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Aresu ◽  
W. De Ceuninck ◽  
R. Degraeve ◽  
B. Kaczer ◽  
G. Knuyt ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 10245-10276 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Li ◽  
M. Rodell

Abstract. Past studies on soil moisture spatial variability have been mainly conducted in catchment scales where soil moisture is often sampled over a short time period. Because of limited climate and weather conditions, the observed soil moisture often exhibited smaller dynamic ranges which prevented the complete revelation of soil moisture spatial variability as a function of mean soil moisture. In this study, spatial statistics (mean, spatial variability and skewness) of in situ soil moisture measurements (from a continuously monitored network across the US), modeled and satellite retrieved soil moisture obtained in a warm season (198 days) were examined at large extent scales (>100 km) over three different climate regions. The investigation on in situ measurements revealed that their spatial moments strongly depend on climates, with distinct mean, spatial variability and skewness observed in each climate zone. In addition, an upward convex shape, which was revealed in several smaller scale studies, was observed for the relationship between spatial variability of in situ soil moisture and its spatial mean across dry, intermediate, and wet climates. These climate specific features were vaguely or partially observable in modeled and satellite retrieved soil moisture estimates, which is attributed to the fact that these two data sets do not have climate specific and seasonal sensitive mean soil moisture values, in addition to lack of dynamic ranges. From the point measurements to satellite retrievals, soil moisture spatial variability decreased in each climate region. The three data sources all followed the power law in the scale dependency of spatial variability, with coarser resolution data showing stronger scale dependency than finer ones. The main findings from this study are: (1) the statistical distribution of soil moisture depends on spatial mean soil moisture values and thus need to be derived locally within any given area; (2) the boundedness of soil moisture plays a pivoting role in the dependency of soil moisture spatial variability/skewness on its mean (and thus climate conditions); (3) the scale dependency of soil moisture spatial variability changes with climate conditions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Pasik ◽  
Wolfgang Preimesberger ◽  
Bernhard Bauer-Marschallinger ◽  
Wouter Dorigo

<p>Multiple satellite-based global surface soil moisture (SSM) datasets are presently available, these however, address exclusively the top layer of the soil (0-5cm). Meanwhile, root-zone soil moisture cannot be directly quantified with remote sensing but can be estimated from SSM using a land surface model. Alternatively, soil water index (SWI; calculated from SSM as a function of time needed for infiltration) can be used as a simple approximation of root-zone conditions. SWI is a proxy for deeper layers of the soil profile which control evapotranspiration, and is hence especially important for studying hydrological processes over vegetation-covered areas and meteorological modelling.</p><p>Here we introduce the advances in our work on the first operationally capable SWI-based root-zone soil moisture dataset from C3S Soil Moisture v201912 COMBINED product, spanning the period 2002-2020. The uniqueness of this dataset lies in the fact that T-values (temporal lengths ruling the infiltration) characteristic of SWI were translated into particular soil depths making it much more intuitive, user-friendly and easily applicable. Available are volumetric soil moisture values for the top 1 m of the soil profile at 10 cm intervals, where the optimal T-value (T-best) for each soil layer is selected based on a range of correlation metrics with in situ measurements from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) and the relevant soil and climatic parameters.<br>Additionally we present the results of an extensive global validation against in situ measurements (ISMN) as well as the results of investigations into the relationship between a range of soil and climate characteristics and the optimal T-values for particular soil depths.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 1818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Ciani ◽  
Rosalia Santoleri ◽  
Gian Luigi Liberti ◽  
Catherine Prigent ◽  
Craig Donlon ◽  
...  

We present a study on the potential of the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission for the global monitoring of Sea-Surface Salinity (SSS) using Level-4 (gap-free) analysis processing. Space-based SSS are currently provided by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellites. However, there are no planned missions to guarantee continuity in the remote SSS measurements for the near future. The CIMR mission is in a preparatory phase with an expected launch in 2026. CIMR is focused on the provision of global coverage, high resolution sea-surface temperature (SST), SSS and sea-ice concentration observations. In this paper, we evaluate the mission impact within the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) SSS processing chain. The CMEMS SSS operational products are based on a combination of in situ and satellite (SMOS) SSS and high-resolution SST information through a multivariate optimal interpolation. We demonstrate the potential of CIMR within the CMEMS SSS operational production after the SMOS era. For this purpose, we implemented an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) based on the CMEMS MERCATOR global operational model. The MERCATOR SSSs were used to generate synthetic in situ and CIMR SSS and, at the same time, they provided a reference gap-free SSS field. Using the optimal interpolation algorithm, we demonstrated that the combined use of in situ and CIMR observations improves the global SSS retrieval compared to a processing where only in situ observations are ingested. The improvements are observed in the 60% and 70% of the global ocean surface for the reconstruction of the SSS and of the SSS spatial gradients, respectively. Moreover, the study highlights the CIMR-based salinity patterns are more accurate both in the open ocean and in coastal areas. We conclude that CIMR can guarantee continuity for accurate monitoring of the ocean surface salinity from space.


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