Retrieval of soil moisture with airborne and satellite microwave sensors

Experimental campaigns with airborne and satellite microwave sensors have been carried out on an agricultural area in Northern Italy with the main purpose of gathering a suitable set of data to validate two operational algorithms developed to retrieve soil moisture from passive and active microwave sensors at different spatial scales. The algorithms will be used in a pilot project based on the use of Earth observation data in forecasting and monitoring the risk of floods and landslides. Radiometric data have been collected with the airborne IFAC instruments and the AMSR-E, while ENVISAT/ASAR images have been acquired for high resolution estimate of soil moisture at field scale.