Improving the capability of land-surface process models to simulate soil moisture assists in better understanding the atmosphere-land interaction. In semi-arid regions, due to limited near-surface observational data and large errors in large-scale parameters obtained by the remote sensing method, there exist uncertainties in land surface parameters, which can cause large offsets between the sim...

Passive microwave sensors have many advantages including the ability to directly measured soil moisture at large spatial scales regardless of weather conditions or time of day. However, microwave-sensed soil moisture’s inevitable limitation is that it cannot describe hydrology at the watershed because its retrieved soil moisture scale is too large. Thus, microwave-sensed soil moisture requires ...

Soil moisture gradients along hillslopes in humid watersheds, although indicated by vegetation gradients and by studies using models, have been difficult to confirm empirically. While soil properties and topographic features are the two general physiographic factors controlling soil moisture on hillslopes, studies have shown conflicting results regarding which factor is more important. The rela...

A linear relationship between ERS-2 SAR backscattering coe cient (s0 ) and volumetric soil moisture was determined at both ends of a rainfall gradient in Israel. A Normalized radar Backscatter soil Moisture Index (NBMI) was derived and related strongly to soil moisture concentration. This index may allow the mapping of soil moisture conditions over large areas with C band SAR data.

Different techniques for estimating seasonal water use from soil profile water depletion frequently do not account for flux below the root zone. Shallow water table contribution to supply crop water use may be important in arid and semi-arid regions. Development of predictive root uptake models, under influence of shallow water table makes it possible for planners to incorporate interaction bet...

Knowledge of soil moisture dynamics in the unsaturated soil zone provides valuable information on the temporal and spatial variability of groundwater recharge. This is especially true for the Mediterranean region, where a substantial fraction of long-term groundwater recharge is expected to occur during high magnitude precipitation events of aboveaverage wet winters. To elucidate process unders...

The scope of this study is to establish the parameters of the L-band (1.4 GHz) Microwave Emission of the Biosphere model (L-MEB) for grass covers, and to assess surface soil moisture retrievals in areas covered by grass. L-MEB parameters are key ancillary information for the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) retrieval algorithm that produces estimates of the surface soil moisture ...