Inversion of Surface Soil Moisture from Radar Altimetry Backscattering in Semi-Arid Environments

Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) is a key parameter of water and energy balances in semi-arid areas. SSM is linearly related to the radar backscattering coefficients (σ
₀
) over sand. Linear relationships are commonly used for inverting SSM in semi-arid areas from SAR and scatterometer data. Recent studies demonstrated that SSM can also be inversed from radar altimetry backscattering. An inversion method combining radar altimetry σ
₀
and land surface model (LSM) outputs is proposed here.