EGU23-5175, updated on 22 Feb 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5175
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

A comparative study of SMAP and ASCAT satellite soil moisture products with cosmic-ray neutron sensing and in-situ data in a Mediterranean setting

Spyridon E. Detsikas1, George P. Petropoulos1, Nikos Koutsias2, Dionisios Gasparatos3, Vasilis Pisinaras4, Heye Bogena5, Frank Wendland5, Frank Herrmann5, and Andreas Panagopoulos4
Spyridon E. Detsikas et al.
  • 1Department of Geography, Harokopio University of Athens, El. Venizelou 70, Kallithea, 17671, Athens, Greece
  • 2Department of Sustainable Agriculture, University of Patras, GR-30100 Agrinio, Greece
  • 3Laboratory of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
  • 4Soil and Water Resources Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization (ELGO Dimitra), 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece
  • 5Agrosphere (IBG-3), Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany

Obtaining Soil Moisture Content (SMC) over large scales is of key importance in several environmental and agricultural applications especially in the context of climate change and transition to digital farming. Remote sensing (RS) has a demonstrated capability in retrieving SMC over large areas with several operational products already available at different spatiotemporal resolutions. At the same time, cosmic-ray neutron sensing is a recently emerged approach in retrieving high temporal resolution SMC at intermediate spatial scales. The present study conducts an intercomparison between different RS-based soil moisture products, daily SMC retrievals from a cosmic-ray neutron sensor (CRNS) station and a network of in situ SoilNet wireless sensors installed at the Pinios Hydrologic Observatory ILTER site in central Greece for a time period of 2018-2019. The RS-based soil moisture products included herein are from NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and Metop-A/B Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) satellite missions. The methodological workflow adopted includes standardized validation procedures employing a series of statistical measures to quantify the agreement between the different RS-based soil moisture products, CRNS-based SMC and the SoilNet ground truth data. Our study results contribute towards global efforts aiming at exploiting CRNS data in the context of soil moisture retrievals and their potential synergies with RS-based products. Furthermore, our findings provide valuable insights into assessing the capability of CRNS at retrieving more accurate SMC estimates at arid and semi-arid environments such as those found in the Mediterranean basin, while supporting also ongoing global validation efforts.

Keywords: Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensors; SMAP; ASCAT; SoilNet; Soil Moisture Content

How to cite: Detsikas, S. E., Petropoulos, G. P., Koutsias, N., Gasparatos, D., Pisinaras, V., Bogena, H., Wendland, F., Herrmann, F., and Panagopoulos, A.: A comparative study of SMAP and ASCAT satellite soil moisture products with cosmic-ray neutron sensing and in-situ data in a Mediterranean setting, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-5175, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-5175, 2023.