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 (σ0) 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 σ0and land surface model (LSM) outputs is proposed here.

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