Soil moisture assessments for brown locust Locustana pardalina breeding potential using synthetic aperture radar

Abstract Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery was collected over a brown locust Locustana pardalina outbreak area to estimate soil moisture relevant to egg development. ERS-2/RadarSat overpasses and field studies enabled parameterization of surface roughness, volumetric soil moisture, soil texture, and vegetation cover. Data were analyzed both when the target area was assessed as nonvegetated and when treated as vegetated. For the former, using the integral equation model (IEM) and soil surface data combined with the sensitivity of the IEM to changes in surface roughness introduced an error of ∼ ± 0.06     cm 3   cm − 3 in volumetric soil moisture. Comparison of the IEM modeling results with backscatter responses from the ERS-2/RadarSat imagery revealed errors as high as ± 0.14     cm 3   cm − 3 , mostly due to IEM calibration problems and the impact of vegetation. Two modified versions of the water cloud model (WCM) were parameterized, one based on measurements of vegetation moisture and the other on vegetation biomass. A sensitivity analysis of the resulting model revealed a positive relationship between increases in both vegetation biomass and vegetation moisture and the backscatter responses from the ERS-2 and RadarSat sensors. The WCM was able to explain up to 80% of the variability found when the IEM was used alone.

[1]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Microwave Backscatter Dependence on Surface Roughness, Soil Moisture, and Soil Texture: Part I-Bare Soil , 1978, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience Electronics.

[2]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  Taking into account vegetation effects to estimate soil moisture from C-band radar measurements , 1996 .

[3]  Zhiming Lu,et al.  Study of high SAR backscattering caused by an increase of soil moisture over a sparsely vegetated area: Implications for characteristics of backscattering , 2002 .

[4]  David K. Weaver,et al.  Grasshoppers and locusts , 2007 .

[5]  Martin Kent,et al.  Vegetation Description and Analysis: A Practical Approach , 1992 .

[6]  L. V. Bennett,et al.  The development and termination of the 1968 plague of the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria (Forskål) (Orthoptera, Acrididae) , 1976 .

[7]  Yang Du,et al.  Sensitivity to soil moisture by active and passive microwave sensors , 2000, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[8]  U. Wegmüller,et al.  Soil Moisture monitoring with ERS-SAR interferometry , 1997 .

[9]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  Theoretical study of the sensitivity of the microwave backscattering coefficient to the soil surface parameters , 1989 .

[10]  G. Guyot,et al.  Estimating surface soil moisture and leaf area index of a wheat canopy using a dual-frequency (C and X bands) scatterometer , 1993 .

[11]  Malcolm Davidson,et al.  On the characterization of agricultural soil roughness for radar remote sensing studies , 2000, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[12]  Kamal Sarabandi,et al.  Electromagnetic scattering from short branching vegetation , 2000, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[13]  Compton J. Tucker,et al.  Assessment of ecological conditions associated with the 1980/81 desert locust plague upsurge in West Africa using environmental satellite data , 1986 .

[14]  J. J. Matthée,et al.  The Structure and Physiology of the Egg of Locustana par.dalina (Walk.). , 1951 .

[15]  S. Tarantola,et al.  Designing a spectral index to estimate vegetation water content from remote sensing data: Part 2. Validation and applications , 2002 .

[16]  V. Rich.  Personal communication , 1989, Nature.

[17]  Thian Yew Gan,et al.  Retrieving near‐surface soil moisture from Radarsat SAR data , 1999 .

[18]  R. E. Price,et al.  A Century of Locust Control in South Africa , 2003 .

[19]  J. Rosenberg,et al.  Changes in the outbreak region of the Brown Locust in southern Africa. , 2002 .

[20]  L. D. C. Fishpool,et al.  Protracted eclosion and viability of Oedaleus senegalensis (Krauss) eggs (Orthoptera, Acrididae). , 1983 .

[21]  F. Ulaby,et al.  Vegetation modeled as a water cloud , 1978 .

[22]  Tal Svoray,et al.  SAR-based estimation of areal aboveground biomass (AAB) of herbaceous vegetation in the semi-arid zone: A modification of the water-cloud model , 2002 .

[23]  Adrian K. Fung,et al.  Backscattering from a randomly rough dielectric surface , 1992, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[24]  Richard K. Moore,et al.  Microwave Remote Sensing, Active and Passive , 1982 .

[25]  Rajat Bindlish,et al.  Multifrequency Soil Moisture Inversion from SAR Measurements with the Use of IEM , 2000 .

[26]  Keith Cressman,et al.  The Use of New Technologies in Desert Locust Early Warning , 2008 .

[27]  D. Hunter,et al.  FORECASTING AND MANAGEMENT OF MIGRATORY PESTS IN AUSTRALIA , 2002 .

[28]  Chris Brown.  The Karoo: Ecological Patterns and Processes , 2001 .

[29]  V. Brown,et al.  The Locust and Grasshopper Agricultural Manual. , 1984 .

[30]  K. J. Tansey,et al.  Investigating the potential for soil moisture and surface roughness monitoring in drylands using ERS SAR data , 2001 .

[31]  M. Mancini,et al.  Retrieving Soil Moisture Over Bare Soil from ERS 1 Synthetic Aperture Radar Data: Sensitivity Analysis Based on a Theoretical Surface Scattering Model and Field Data , 1996 .

[32]  G. Gee,et al.  Particle-size Analysis , 2018, SSSA Book Series.

[33]  Charlotte Steinmeier,et al.  The SIR-B Observations of Microwave Backscatter Dependence on Soil Moisture, Surface Roughness, and Vegetation Covers , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[34]  A. Fung.  Microwave Scattering and Emission Models and their Applications , 1994 .

[35]  Yisok Oh,et al.  Condition for precise measurement of soil surface roughness , 1998, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[36]  Henri Laur,et al.  Derivation of the backscattering coefficient s0 in ESA ERS SAR PRI products , 1996 .

[37]  N. Baghdadi,et al.  Potential of ERS and Radarsat data for surface roughness monitoring over bare agricultural fields: Application to catchments in Northern France , 2002 .

[38]  J. Wigneron,et al.  An empirical calibration of the integral equation model based on SAR data, soil moisture and surface roughness measurement over bare soils , 2002 .

[39]  Robert A. Cheke,et al.  Brown locust outbreaks and climate variability in southern Africa , 2002 .

[40]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  The use of a microwave backscatter model for retrieving soil moisture over bare soil , 1992 .

[41]  Kmg Taylor,et al.  Particle size analysis , 2013 .

[42]  Pietro Ceccato,et al.  The desert locust upsurge in West Africa (2003 – 2005): Information on the desert locust early warning system and the prospects for seasonal climate forecasting , 2007 .

[43]  L. Prévot,et al.  Estimating the characteristics of vegetation canopies with airborne radar measurements , 1993 .

[44]  Christelle Vancutsem,et al.  Development and Application of Multi-Temporal Colorimetric Transformation to Monitor Vegetation in the Desert Locust Habitat , 2011, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing.

[45]  Simonetta Paloscia,et al.  The relationship between the backscattering coefficient and the biomass of narrow and broad leaf crops , 2001, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[46]  D. Vidal-Madjar,et al.  Estimation of soil and crop parameters for wheat from airborne radar backscattering data in C and X bands , 1994 .

[47]  Bruce G. Colpitts,et al.  The integral equation model and surface roughness signatures in soil moisture and tillage type determination , 1998, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[48]  T. Schmugge,et al.  An Empirical Model for the Complex Dielectric Permittivity of Soils as a Function of Water Content , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.