scholarly journals A Cuboid Model for Assessing Surface Soil Moisture

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 3034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiufang Zhu ◽  
Yaozhong Pan ◽  
Junxia Wang ◽  
Ying Liu

This study proposes a cuboid model for soil moisture assessment. In the model, the three edges were the meteorological, soil, and vegetation feature parameters highly related to soil moisture, and the edge lengths represented the degree of influence of each feature parameter on soil moisture. Soil moisture is assessed by the cuboid diagonal, which is referred to as the cuboid soil moisture index (CSMI) in this paper. The model was applied and validated in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. The results showed that (1) the difference in land surface temperature between day and night (ΔLST), land surface water index (LSWI), and accumulated precipitation (AP) were most closely correlated with soil moisture observation data in our study area, and were therefore selected as soil, crop, and meteorological system parameters to participate in CSMI calculations, respectively. (2) CSMI-1, with a cuboid length coefficient of 2/1/2, was the best model. The correlation of soil moisture derived from CSMI-1 with observed values was 0.64, 0.60, and 0.52 at depths of 10 cm, 20 cm, and 50 cm, respectively. (3) CSMI-1 had good applicability to the evaluation of soil moisture under different vegetation coverage. When the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)was 0–0.7, CSMI-1 was highly correlated with soil moisture at a significance level of 0.01. (4) The three-dimensional (3D) CSMI model can be easily converted to a two-dimensional (2D) model to adapt to different surface conditions (as long as the weight coefficient of one parameter is set to 0). Irrigation information (if available) can be considered as artificial recharge precipitation added in the AP to improve the accuracy of soil moisture inversion. This study provides a reference for soil moisture inversion using optical remote sensing images by integrating soil, vegetation, and meteorological feature parameters.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 680
Author(s):  
Lei Wang ◽  
Wen Zhuo ◽  
Zhifang Pei ◽  
Xingyuan Tong ◽  
Wei Han ◽  
...  

Massive desert locust swarms have been threatening and devouring natural vegetation and agricultural crops in East Africa and West Asia since 2019, and the event developed into a rare and globally concerning locust upsurge in early 2020. The breeding, maturation, concentration and migration of locusts rely on appropriate environmental factors, mainly precipitation, temperature, vegetation coverage and land-surface soil moisture. Remotely sensed images and long-term meteorological observations across the desert locust invasion area were analyzed to explore the complex drivers, vegetation losses and growing trends during the locust upsurge in this study. The results revealed that (1) the intense precipitation events in the Arabian Peninsula during 2018 provided suitable soil moisture and lush vegetation, thus promoting locust breeding, multiplication and gregarization; (2) the regions affected by the heavy rainfall in 2019 shifted from the Arabian Peninsula to West Asia and Northeast Africa, thus driving the vast locust swarms migrating into those regions and causing enormous vegetation loss; (3) the soil moisture and NDVI anomalies corresponded well with the locust swarm movements; and (4) there was a low chance the eastwardly migrating locust swarms would fly into the Indochina Peninsula and Southwest China.


Author(s):  
Noraisyah Tajudin ◽  
Norsuzila Ya'acob ◽  
Darmawaty Mohd Ali ◽  
Nor Aizam Adnan

Soil moisture is one of the contributing factors that accelerates soil erosion and landslide events due to the increase in pore pressure which eventually reduces the soil strength. For landslide prediction and monitoring purposes, large-scale measurement involves estimating the soil moisture. However, estimation of soil moisture usually involves point-based measurements at a particular site and time, which is difficult to capture the spatial and temporal soil moisture dynamics. This paper presents the estimation of the SMI using Landsat 8 images for prediction and monitoring of landslide events in Ulu Kelang, Selangor. The selected SMI map for dry, moist, and wet seasons are obtained from climatology rainfall analysis over 20-year periods (1998-2017). SMI is assessed based on remote sensing data which are land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) using GIS software. Overall results indicated that rainfall distribution is high during inter-monsoon (IM), followed by northeast monsoon (NEM) and southwest monsoon (SWM) season. High rainfall distribution is a direct contributor towards SMI condition. Results from simulation show that April 2017 is known to have the highest SMI estimation season and selected to be the best SMI mapping parameter to be applied for prediction and monitoring of landslide events.


Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnab Saha ◽  
Manti Patil ◽  
Vikas Chandra Goyal ◽  
Devendra Singh Rathore

Soil moisture takes an important part involving climate, vegetation and drought. This paper explains how to calculate the soil moisture index and the role of soil moisture. The objective of this study is to assess the moisture content in soil and soil moisture mapping by using remote sensing data in the selected study area. We applied the remote sensing technique which relies on the use of the soil moisture index (SMI) which uses the data obtained from satellite sensors in its algorithm. The relationship between land surface temperature (LST) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are based on experimental parameterization for the soil moisture index. Multispectral satellite data (visible, red and near-infrared (NIR) and thermal infrared sensor (TIRS) bands) were utilized for assessment of LST and to make vegetation indices map. Geographic Information System (GIS) and image processing software were utilized to determine the LST and NDVI. NDVI and LST are considered as essential data to obtain SMI calculation. The statistical regression analysis of NDVI and LST were shown in standardized regression coefficient. NDVI values are within range −1 to 1 where negative values present loss of vegetation or contaminated vegetation, whereas positive values explain healthy and dense vegetation. LST values are the surface temperature in °C. SMI is categorized into classes from no drought to extreme drought to quantitatively assess drought. The final result is obtainable with the values range from 0 to 1, where values near 1 are the regions with a low amount of vegetation and surface temperature and present a higher level of soil moisture. The values near 0 are the areas with a high amount of vegetation and surface temperature and present the low level of soil moisture. The results indicate that this method can be efficiently applied to estimate soil moisture from multi-temporal Landsat images, which is valuable for monitoring agricultural drought and flood disaster assessment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1340
Author(s):  
Shuailong Feng ◽  
Shuguang Liu ◽  
Lei Jing ◽  
Yu Zhu ◽  
Wende Yan ◽  
...  

Highways provide key social and economic functions but generate a wide range of environmental consequences that are poorly quantified and understood. Here, we developed a before–during–after control-impact remote sensing (BDACI-RS) approach to quantify the spatial and temporal changes of environmental impacts during and after the construction of the Wujing Highway in China using three buffer zones (0–100 m, 100–500 m, and 500–1000 m). Results showed that land cover composition experienced large changes in the 0–100 m and 100–500 m buffers while that in the 500–1000 m buffer was relatively stable. Vegetation and moisture conditions, indicated by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the normalized difference moisture index (NDMI), respectively, demonstrated obvious degradation–recovery trends in the 0–100 m and 100–500 m buffers, while land surface temperature (LST) experienced a progressive increase. The maximal relative changes as annual means of NDVI, NDMI, and LST were about −40%, −60%, and 12%, respectively, in the 0–100m buffer. Although the mean values of NDVI, NDMI, and LST in the 500–1000 m buffer remained relatively stable during the study period, their spatial variabilities increased significantly after highway construction. An integrated environment quality index (EQI) showed that the environmental impact of the highway manifested the most in its close proximity and faded away with distance. Our results showed that the effect distance of the highway was at least 1000 m, demonstrated from the spatial changes of the indicators (both mean and spatial variability). The approach proposed in this study can be readily applied to other regions to quantify the spatial and temporal changes of disturbances of highway systems and subsequent recovery.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 2442
Author(s):  
Jichao Lv ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Jinsheng Tu ◽  
Mingjie Liao ◽  
Jiatai Pang ◽  
...  

There are two problems with using global navigation satellite system-interferometric reflectometry (GNSS-IR) to retrieve the soil moisture content (SMC) from single-satellite data: the difference between the reflection regions, and the difficulty in circumventing the impact of seasonal vegetation growth on reflected microwave signals. This study presents a multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) SMC retrieval model based on integrated multi-satellite data on the impact of the vegetation moisture content (VMC). The normalized microwave reflection index (NMRI) calculated with the multipath effect is mapped to the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to estimate and eliminate the impact of VMC. A MARS model for retrieving the SMC from multi-satellite data is established based on the phase shift. To examine its reliability, the MARS model was compared with a multiple linear regression (MLR) model, a backpropagation neural network (BPNN) model, and a support vector regression (SVR) model in terms of the retrieval accuracy with time-series observation data collected at a typical station. The MARS model proposed in this study effectively retrieved the SMC, with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.916 and a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.021 cm3/cm3. The elimination of the vegetation impact led to 3.7%, 13.9%, 11.7%, and 16.6% increases in R2 and 31.3%, 79.7%, 49.0%, and 90.5% decreases in the RMSE for the SMC retrieved by the MLR, BPNN, SVR, and MARS model, respectively. The results demonstrated the feasibility of correcting the vegetation changes based on the multipath effect and the reliability of the MARS model in retrieving the SMC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaetana Ganci ◽  
Annalisa Cappello ◽  
Giuseppe Bilotta ◽  
Giuseppe Pollicino ◽  
Luigi Lodato

<p>The application of remote sensing for monitoring, detecting and analysing the spatial and extents and temporal changes of waste dumping sites and landfills could become a cost-effective and powerful solution. Multi-spectral satellite images, especially in the thermal infrared, can be exploited to characterize the state of activity of a landfill.  Indeed, waste disposal sites, during the period of activity, can show differences in surface temperature (LST, Land Surface Temperature), state of vegetation (estimated through NDVI, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) or soil moisture (estimated through NDWI, Normalized Difference Water Index) compared to neighboring areas. Landfills with organic waste typically show higher temperatures than surrounding areas due to exothermic decomposition activities. In fact, the biogas, in the absence or in case of inefficiency of the conveying plants, rises through the layers of organic matter and earth (landfill body) until it reaches the surface at a temperature of over 40 ° C. Moreover, in some cases, leachate contamination of the aquifers can be identified by analyzing the soil moisture, through the estimate of the NDWI, and the state of suffering of the vegetation surrounding the site, through the estimate of the NDVI. This latter can also be an indicator of soil contamination due to the presence of toxic and potentially dangerous waste when buried or present nearby. To take into account these facts, we combine the LST, NDVI and NDWI indices of the dump site and surrounding areas in order to characterize waste disposal sites. Preliminary results show how this approach can bring out the area and level of activity of known landfill sites. This could prove particularly useful for the definition of intervention priorities in landfill remediation works.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3459
Author(s):  
Shu-Di Fan ◽  
Yue-Ming Hu ◽  
Lu Wang ◽  
Zhen-Hua Liu ◽  
Zhou Shi ◽  
...  

To increase the spatial resolution of Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), this study modifies the downscaling factor model based on the Temperature Vegetation Drought Index (TVDI) using data from the Project for On-Board Autonomy (PROBA-V). In the modified model, TVDI parameters were derived from the temperature-vegetation space and the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI). This study was conducted in the north China region using SMAP, PROBA-V, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite images. The 9-km spatial resolution SMAP data was downscaled to 0.3-km spatial resolution soil moisture using a modified downscaling method. Downscaling accuracies from the original and modified downscaling factor models were compared based on field observations. The results show that both methods generated similar spatial distributions in which soil moisture estimates increased as vegetation coverage increased from built-up areas to forest. However, based on the root mean square error between observations and estimations, the modified model demonstrated an increased estimation accuracy of 4.2% for soil moisture compared to the original method. This study also implies that downscaled soil moisture shows promise as a data source for subsequent watershed scale studies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 5341-5356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyed Hamed Alemohammad ◽  
Jana Kolassa ◽  
Catherine Prigent ◽  
Filipe Aires ◽  
Pierre Gentine

Abstract. Characterizing soil moisture at spatiotemporal scales relevant to land surface processes (i.e., of the order of 1 km) is necessary in order to quantify its role in regional feedbacks between the land surface and the atmospheric boundary layer. Moreover, several applications such as agricultural management can benefit from soil moisture information at fine spatial scales. Soil moisture estimates from current satellite missions have a reasonably good temporal revisit over the globe (2–3-day repeat time); however, their finest spatial resolution is 9 km. NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite has estimated soil moisture at two different spatial scales of 36 and 9 km since April 2015. In this study, we develop a neural-network-based downscaling algorithm using SMAP observations and disaggregate soil moisture to 2.25 km spatial resolution. Our approach uses the mean monthly Normalized Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI) as ancillary data to quantify the subpixel heterogeneity of soil moisture. Evaluation of the downscaled soil moisture estimates against in situ observations shows that their accuracy is better than or equal to the SMAP 9 km soil moisture estimates.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Cathy Fricke ◽  
Rita Pongrácz ◽  
Tamás Gál ◽  
Stevan Savić ◽  
János Unger

AbstractUrban and rural thermal properties mainly depend on surface cover features as well as vegetation cover. Surface classification using the local climate zone (LCZ) system provides an appropriate approach for distinguishing urban and rural areas, as well as comparing the surface urban heat island (SUHI) of climatically different regions. Our goal is to compare the SUHI effects of two Central European cities (Szeged, Hungary and Novi Sad, Serbia) with a temperate climate (Köppen-Geiger’s Cfa), and a city (Beer Sheva, Israel) with a hot desert (BWh) climate. LCZ classification is completed using WUDAPT (World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools) methodology and the thermal differences are analysed on the basis of the land surface temperature data of the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor, derived on clear days over a four-year period. This intra-climate region comparison shows the difference between the SUHI effects of Szeged and Novi Sad in spring and autumn. As the pattern of NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) indicates, the vegetation coverage of the surrounding rural areas is an important modifying factor of the diurnal SUHI effect, and can change the sign of the urban-rural thermal difference. According to the inter-climate comparison, the urban-rural thermal contrast is the strongest during daytime in summer with an opposite sign in each season.


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