Soil moisture estimation with ERS-1 SAR data in the East-German loess soil area

Abstract

A campaign started in September 1993 and finished in December 1994 in which ground truth measurements were taken during 40 ERS-1 over-flights. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Precision images (PRI) of ERS-1 of the descending and the ascending passes were used to investigate the dependency of the backscattering coefficient on the soil moisture content. Under certain circumstances a linear relation between the backscattering coefficient and the soil moisture is found.