Soil Texture Estimation Over a Semiarid Area Using TerraSAR-X Radar Data

Abstract

In this paper, it is proposed to use TERRASAR-X data for analysis and estimation of soil surface texture. Our study is based on experimental campaigns carried out over a semi-arid area in North Africa. Simultaneously to TERRASAR-X radar acquisitions, ground measurements (texture, soil moisture and roughness) were made on different test fields. A strong correlation is observed between soil texture and a processed signal from two radar images, the first acquired just after a rain event and the second corresponding to dry soil conditions, acquired three weeks later. An empirical relationship is proposed for the retrieval from radar signals of clay content percent. Soil texture mapping is proposed over the study site, which includes bare soils and olive groves.

Multisensoral Topsoil Mapping in the Semiarid Lake Manyara Region, Northern Tanzania

“…The two TSX1 scenes were mosaicked to a single dataset in order to cover the whole study area. The images were acquired in the dry season (Table 4; Figure 2), to minimize the influence of soil moisture on the backscatter intensity signal [36][37][38]75]. …”

“…They were also able to model the distribution of sand, clay, organic carbon (Corg) and nitrogen. SAR backscatter intensity information from X-, C-and L-band sensors proved to be sensitive for soil moisture differences, surface roughness and, to some extent, also to soil texture [13,14,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Hengl et al [42] applied an automated random forest approach to map soil properties of Africa with DEM-based landforms parameters and MODIS data at a spatial resolution of 250 m for the Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) project.…”

The Delineation of Paleo-Shorelines in the Lake Manyara Basin Using TerraSAR-X Data

“…All scenes were ordered in SLC format. The precipitation induced soil moisture increases the backscattering intensity for the soil covered areas and reduces the ability to discriminate the relevant structures of the paleo-shorelines [29,30]. Because soil moisture information with a sufficient resolution was not available, TRMM daily Rainfall Estimate product 3B42 (V7) was used to examine the days preceding the acquisition dates for relevant precipitation [41].…”

“…Thus, in this study we utilize the TerraSAR-X sensor with its high resolution X-band images. This sensor offers the possibility to delineate distinct morphological structures due to the relation of backscatter intensity and geometry, texture and surface roughness [29,30].…”

Preliminary Results of Estimating Soil Moisture Over Bare Soil Using Full-Polarimetric Alos-2 Data

“…In recent years, radar remote sensing with different wavelengths is used to monitor spatial and temporal variations in soil moisture. Many studies have been presented to retrieve soil moisture content from X-band (Aubert et al, 2011;Baghdadi et al, 2011;Zribi et al, 2012;Kseneman et al, 2012;Baghdadi et al, 2012;Kweon et al, 2012;Satalino et al, 2012) and C-band (Gherboudj et al, 2011;Moran et al, 2011;Pasolli et al, 2011;Merzouki et al, 2011;Livens & Verhoest, 2012;Jacome et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2013) SAR images; however, few studies were carried out using L-band (Paloscia et al, 2012;Balenzano et al, 2013) SAR data.…”