Study on retrieval methods of soil water content in vegetation covering areas based on multi-source remote sensing data

Fusion image of SAR (Radar-sat image) combined with visible spectrum remote sensing image (TM image) is used to extract soil and vegetation water content in arid oasis taking the delta oasis of Weigan and Kuqa rivers in Xinjiang as the study area. Based on the Normalized Difference Moisture Index extracted from homochromous visible spectrum remote sensing data, this thesis utilizes “water-cloud model” to wipe off vegetation influence from total backscattering coefficient of radar data and sets up the relationship between soil backscattering coefficient and soil moisture. The Result shows that in arid and semi-arid area where the main crops are cotton and corn, the combination of C- band HH polarization radar data with visible image performs well in the study of removing vegetation influence while retrieving soil water content in medium vegetated areas.