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Multi‐scale spatial correlation and scaling behavior of surface soil moisture
Author(s) -
Ryu Dongryeol,
Famiglietti James S.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2006gl025831
Subject(s) - scaling , scale (ratio) , water content , spatial ecology , soil science , environmental science , spatial correlation , power law , spatial variability , correlation , moisture , variance (accounting) , statistics , mathematics , geology , meteorology , physics , geography , geotechnical engineering , cartography , geometry , ecology , accounting , business , biology
The scaling behavior of surface soil moisture variance is presented across spatial scales of observation from 1 × 1 km 2 to 140 × 140 km 2 . Semi‐variograms were used to analyze the spatial correlation in remotely sensed soil moisture data from SGP97. Results indicate that a nested correlation structure exists within regional scale fields. Three representative semi‐variograms were chosen to calculate the scaling of soil moisture variance with increasing support scale. While previous research at smaller scales (<1 km 2 ) revealed that soil moisture variance follows a power law decay with increasing support area, we show that in the presence of significant spatial correlation at the larger scales studied here, a power law relationship no longer holds. Rather, the type of correlation function and correlation length play an important role in the relationship between soil moisture variance and support area. We suggest that understanding the spatial correlation pattern of soil moisture across scales is critical for characterizing the scaling behavior of soil moisture variance.