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www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/4/2273/2007/
doi:10.5194/hessd-4-2273-2007
© Author(s) 2007. This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons License.
Comparison of soil moisture fields estimated by catchment modelling and remote sensing: a case study in South Africa
1Civil Engineering Programme, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa
2Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
*now at: Laboratoire d'étude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement (UMR 5564), 38000 Grenoble, France
Abstract. The paper compares two independent approaches to estimate soil moisture at the regional scale over a 4625 km2 catchment (Liebenbergsvlei, South Africa). The first estimate is derived from a physically-based hydrological model (TOPKAPI). The second estimate is derived from the scatterometer on board on the European Remote Sensing satellite (ERS). Results show a very good correspondence between the modelled and remotely sensed soil moisture, illustrated over two selected seasons of 8 months by regression R2 coefficients lying between 0.78 and 0.92. Such a close similarity between these two different, independent approaches is very promising for (i) remote sensing in general (ii) the use of hydrological models to back-calculate and disaggregate the satellite soil moisture estimate and (iii) for hydrological models to assimilate the remotely sensed soil moisture.
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Citation: Vischel, T., Pegram, G., Sinclair, S., Wagner, W., and Bartsch, A.: Comparison of soil moisture fields estimated by catchment modelling and remote sensing: a case study in South Africa, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 4, 2273-2306, doi:10.5194/hessd-4-2273-2007, 2007. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
