A Study of Soil Moisture Estimation from Multi-Temporal L-band Radar Observations of Vegetated Surfaces

Radar retrieval of soil moisture from vegetated surfaces tend to be complex, requiring a robust forward model and detailed ancillary information of the observed scene. Robust forward models for scattering of electromagnetic waves from natural scenes are difficult to achieve, particularly in the presence of vegetation. This study reports on a radar soil moisture retrieval algorithm that reduces the need for a robust forward model. The method is based on the algorithm developed in [1], but generalized to apply to an arbitrary number of polarizations.