Radar measurement of soil moisture content
Author:
- 1 March 1974
- journal article
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
- Vol. 22 (2) , 257-265
Abstract
The effect of soil moisture on the radar backscattering coefficient was investigated by measuring the 4-8 GHz spectral response from two types of bare-soil fields: slightly rough and very rough, in terms of the wavelength. An FM-CW radar system mounted atop a 75-ft truck-mounted boom was used to measure the return at 10 frequency points across the 4-8 GHz band, at 8 different look angles (0\degthrough70\deg), and for all polarization combinations. A total of 17 sets of data were collected covering the range 4-36 percent soil moisture content by weight. The results indicate that the radar response to soil moisture content is highly dependent on the surface roughness, microwave frequency, and look angle. The response seems to be linear, however, over the range 15-30 percent moisture content for all angles, frequencies, polarizations, and surface conditions.Keywords
This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- Remote Sensing Of The Near-Surface Moisture Profile Of Specular Soils With Multi-Frequency Microwave Radiometry1972
- Soil Moisture Detection with Imaging RadarsWater Resources Research, 1971
- Radar tracking accuracy improvement by means of pulse-to-pulse frequency modulationTransactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Part I: Communication and Electronics, 1963