RETRIEVAL OF SOIL MOISTURE CONTENT FROM MICROWAVE BACKSCATTERING USING A MODIFIED IEM MODEL

A multilayer soil model for retrieving soil moisture content using the Integral Equation Method (IEM) is investigated in this paper. The total reflection coefficients of the natural soil are obtained using the multilayer model, and volumetric scattering is approximated by the internal reflections between layers. The surface reflection terms in IEM model are replaced by the total reflection coefficients from the multilayer soil surface in retrieving the soil moisture content. The original IEM model includes only the surface scattering of the natural bare soil, while the multilayer soil — IEM model (MS-IEM) includes both the surface scattering and the volumetric scattering within the soil. Both the MS-IEM model and the original IEM model are compared in soil moisture retrieval using the experimental Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) backscattering coefficient data in the literature. It is noted that the mean square error between the measurement data and Received 29 July 2010, Accepted 27 October 2010, Scheduled 3 November 2010 Corresponding author: Kaijun Song (kaijun.song@hotmail.com). 384 Song, Zhou, and Fan the values estimated by the modified IEM model is about 7.7%, while that between the measured and the estimated by the original IEM model is about 12%. The accuracy of estimating soil moisture by the IEM model is improved by 4.3%. In addition, the regression analysis between the measured and model-predicted soil moistures has been done.