Land surface model validation at distributed scales is important for model improvements. Recent advances in satellite technology provide an opportunity for distributed calibration and validation of land surface models. In the past years, a number of active and passive microwave soil moisture products have become available. While passive microwave soil moisture is the preferred approach for soil...

the relationship between topography, land use, and topsoil moisture storage is investigated for a small catchment with undulating deep loess hilslopes in the south of the netherlands. for a period of 10 months, soil moisture profiles have been measured weekly at 15 locations throughout the catchment. a generalized additive model was employed to find relationships between the various factors inf...

In-situ soil moisture was widely used to validate and calibrate the satellite-retrieved data of different footprints. However, it contained unavoidable uncertainty when used as spatial representative. This paper examined the uncertainty in pixel-wise soil moisture designed for satellite validation in the HiWATER project. Two in-situ data sets were used for the examination, which were carefully ...

Using a fully coupled climate–terrestrial ecosystem model, we demonstrate explicitly that an initial perturbation on vegetation induces not only a direct positive vegetation feedback, but also a significant indirect vegetation–soil moisture feedback. The indirect feedback is generated through either fractional cover change or soil moisture depletion. Both indirect feedback mechanisms are trigge...

Soil moisture is one of the most important variable that in uences the soil-vegetation-atmosphere uxes. However, due to its high temporal and spatial variability, it is dif cult to provide accurate quantitative information on soil moisture at regional and global scales. Different approaches exist, but remote sensing is the more appropriated to measure soil moisture values and its variations. It...

The riparian area is that area of land located immediately adjacent to streams, lakes, or other surface waters. Some would describe it as the floodplain. The boundary of the riparian area and the ad join ing uplands is gradual and not always well defined. However, riparian areas differ from the uplands because of their high levels of soil moisture, frequent flooding, and unique assemblage of pl...

Moisture content in the soil and snow in the alpine environment is an important factor, not only for environmentally oriented research, but also for decision making in agriculture and hazard management. Current observation techniques quantifying soil moisture or characterizing a snow pack often require dedicated instrumentation that measures either at point scale or at very large (satellite pix...