Evaluating the surface temperature and vegetation index (Ts/VI) method for estimating surface soil moisture in heterogeneous regions

The surface temperature and vegetation index ( Ts / VI ) method is a remote sensing-based quantitative approach. It is widely used for estimating the evapotranspiration, evaporative fraction, and surface soil moisture ( SSM ). However, this method can only be used in flat regions. In this study, we investigated the effect of altitude when using the Ts/VI method for estimating the SSM in heterogeneous regions. The results showed that the temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) method performed poorly at estimating the SSM in the source region of the Yangtze River; there was a weak correlation with the observed SSM , and R 2 was only 0.167. However, the performance of the method improved considerably when the effects of both altitude and frozen soil were considered; the TVDI had a strong correlation with the observed SSM , and R 2 improved to 0.617. In the study area, the effects of altitude on the TVDI values were greater than those of the frozen soil. In general, the Ts / VI method can obtain satisfactory results in mountainous regions if the effects of both the altitude and frozen soil are considered.

[1]  Chongli Di,et al.  STUDY ON SOIL MOISTURE BY THERMAL INFRARED DATA , 2013 .

[2]  Rasmus Fensholt,et al.  Combining the triangle method with thermal inertia to estimate regional evapotranspiration — Applied to MSG-SEVIRI data in the Senegal River basin , 2008 .

[3]  P. Mote,et al.  Surface temperature lapse rates over complex terrain: Lessons from the Cascade Mountains , 2010 .

[4]  Thomas J. Jackson,et al.  Soil moisture retrieval from AMSR-E , 2003, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[5]  F. Wentz.  A well‐calibrated ocean algorithm for special sensor microwave / imager , 1997 .

[6]  W. Wagner,et al.  A Method for Estimating Soil Moisture from ERS Scatterometer and Soil Data , 1999 .

[7]  N. J. Rosenberg,et al.  Thermal scanner measurement of canopy temperatures to estimate evapotranspiration , 1976 .

[8]  C. R. Chen,et al.  Monitoring agricultural drought in the Lower Mekong Basin using MODIS NDVI and land surface temperature data , 2012, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[9]  Kaniska Mallick,et al.  Estimating volumetric surface moisture content for cropped soils using a soil wetness index based on surface temperature and NDVI , 2009 .

[10]  Mauro E. Holzman,et al.  Estimating soil moisture and the relationship with crop yield using surface temperature and vegetation index , 2014, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[11]  M. S. Moran,et al.  Estimating crop water deficit using the relation between surface-air temperature and spectral vegetation index , 1994 .

[12]  Feng Zhang,et al.  Soil Moisture Monitoring Based on Land Surface Temperature-Vegetation Index Space Derived from MODIS Data , 2014 .

[13]  Wei Gao,et al.  Integrating temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) and regional water stress index (RWSI) for drought assessment with the aid of LANDSAT TM/ETM+ images , 2011, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[14]  T. Carlson.  An Overview of the “Triangle Method” for Estimating Surface Evapotranspiration and Soil Moisture from Satellite Imagery , 2007, Sensors (Basel, Switzerland).

[15]  T. Jackson,et al.  Soil moisture estimates from TRMM Microwave Imager observations over the Southern United States , 2003 .

[16]  S. Running,et al.  Developing Satellite-derived Estimates of Surface Moisture Status , 1993 .

[17]  Frank J. Wentz,et al.  A Well Calibrated Ocean Algorithm for SSM/I , 1999 .

[18]  Shunlin Liang,et al.  Monitoring surface soil moisture status based on remotely sensed surface temperature and vegetation index information , 2012 .

[19]  S. Islam,et al.  Estimation of surface evaporation map over Southern Great Plains using remote sensing data , 2001 .

[20]  George P. Petropoulos,et al.  Surface soil moisture retrievals from remote sensing: Current status, products & future trends , 2015 .

[21]  Jeff Dozier,et al.  A generalized split-window algorithm for retrieving land-surface temperature from space , 1996, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[22]  Bo-Hui Tang,et al.  An application of the Ts–VI triangle method with enhanced edges determination for evapotranspiration estimation from MODIS data in arid and semi-arid regions: Implementation and validation , 2010 .

[23]  R. Horton,et al.  A general approach to estimate soil water content from thermal inertia , 2009 .

[24]  K. Omasa,et al.  Comparative evaluation of the Vegetation Dryness Index (VDI), the Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) and the improved TVDI (iTVDI) for water stress detection in semi-arid regions of Iran , 2012 .

[25]  Yann Kerr,et al.  Soil moisture retrieval from space: the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission , 2001, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[26]  I. Sandholt,et al.  A simple interpretation of the surface temperature/vegetation index space for assessment of surface moisture status , 2002 .

[27]  M. S. Moran,et al.  Estimating soil moisture at the watershed scale with satellite-based radar and land surface models , 2004 .

[28]  Inge Sandholt,et al.  Validation and scale dependencies of the triangle method for the evaporative fraction estimation over heterogeneous areas , 2014 .

[29]  S. Idso,et al.  Canopy temperature as a crop water stress indicator , 1981 .