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A review of spatial downscaling of satellite remotely sensed soil moisture
Author(s) -
Peng Jian,
Loew Alexander,
Merlin Olivier,
Verhoest Niko E. C.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
reviews of geophysics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 8.087
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1944-9208
pISSN - 8755-1209
DOI - 10.1002/2016rg000543
Subject(s) - downscaling , environmental science , remote sensing , water content , satellite , satellite imagery , moisture , image resolution , meteorology , computer science , geology , precipitation , geography , geotechnical engineering , aerospace engineering , artificial intelligence , engineering
Satellite remote sensing technology has been widely used to estimate surface soil moisture. Numerous efforts have been devoted to develop global soil moisture products. However, these global soil moisture products, normally retrieved from microwave remote sensing data, are typically not suitable for regional hydrological and agricultural applications such as irrigation management and flood predictions, due to their coarse spatial resolution. Therefore, various downscaling methods have been proposed to improve the coarse resolution soil moisture products. The purpose of this paper is to review existing methods for downscaling satellite remotely sensed soil moisture. These methods are assessed and compared in terms of their advantages and limitations. This review also provides the accuracy level of these methods based on published validation studies. In the final part, problems and future trends associated with these methods are analyzed.