ASSESSMENT OF SOIL MOISTURE THROUGH FIELD MEASUREMENTS AND AMSR-E REMOTE SENSING DATA ANALYSIS OVER KUWAIT DESERT

Kuwait Journal of Science

Hala Khalid Al Jassar¹  Kota Sivasankara Rao¹ 

[1] Kuwait University

关键词: Volumetric Soil Moisture (VSM);    AMSR-E;    Satellite remote sensing;   

DOI  :  

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Kuwait University * Academic Publication Council

【 摘 要 】

Field work was conducted 24 times between April 2011 and September 2013 in the KISR (Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research) protected site located at Sulaibiya with the intent of measuring soil moisture at 16 specific locations over a 50 sq. km area. Soil moisture was measured using the thermo-gravimetric method. Soil profile measurement was also conducted up to a depth of 1.2 m to estimate sub-surface soil moisture. The field work estimated soil moisture variation during the wet and the dry seasons and over 16 different locations in the KISR site. The field measurements indicate that the soil moisture varies from 0.11 m 3m -3in the wet season to less than 0.01 m 3m -3in the dry season. The standard deviation of the spatial soil moisture variation ranges from 0.02 m 3m -3in the wet season to less than 0.0009 m 3m -3in the dry season. Another study is conducted in this paper using remote sensing data of soil moisture (NASA product) from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on the Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua satellite. AMSR-E instrument provides Volumetric Soil Moisture (VSM), Brightness Temperatures and Vegetation Water Content (VWC) during nine years from 2003 to 2011 all over the land mass of the Earth.  The AMSR-E derived monthly averaged soil moisture over the Kuwait study area was found to vary between a minimum of 0.06 m 3m -3in August to a maximum of 0.083 m 3m -3in January. The standard deviation of the spatial variation of soil moisture ranges from of 0.004 m 3m -3in August to 0.017 m 3m -3in January. As the KISR site in Sulaibiya has an area of 50 sq. km area while the AMSR-E pixel area is 625 sq km, a comparison between field measurements and soil moisture comparison is not adequate due to the difference in resolution. However some indications of general trends of soil moisture variations are studied.

【 授权许可】

Unknown