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Remote Sensing
Volume 18
Issue 6
10.3390/rs18060855
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Article

Filling the Gap: Elevation-Based Sentinel-1 Surface Soil Moisture Retrieval over the Austrian Alps

by
Samuel Massart
1,*,
Mariette Vreugdenhil
1,
Juraj Parajka
2,
Carina Villegas-Lituma
1,
Ignacio Borlaf-Mena
1,
Patrik Sleziak
3 and
Wolfgang Wagner
1
1
Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, Vienna University of Technology, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8, 1040 Vienna, Austria
2
Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management, Vienna University of Technology, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8, 1040 Vienna, Austria
3
Institute of Hydrology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská Cesta 9, 84104 Bratislava, Slovakia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Remote Sens. 2026, 18(6), 855; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18060855
Submission received: 12 January 2026 / Revised: 3 March 2026 / Accepted: 6 March 2026 / Published: 10 March 2026
(This article belongs to the Section Remote Sensing in Geology, Geomorphology and Hydrology)
Review Reports Versions Notes

Abstract

As climate change increasingly impacts the water cycle across the Alpine region, monitoring surface soil moisture is essential for hydrological models and drought early warning. Yet operational products either mask steep terrain, or lack the spatial resolution to capture the surface soil moisture (SSM) spatial variability of the Alpine catchments. This study presents a novel retrieval approach aggregating Sentinel-1 radiometric terrain-corrected backscatter (γ0) into 100 m elevation bands per sub-basin and aspect across the Austrian Alps. The resulting Alpine backscatter product is processed through an orbit-wise change detection to derive over 34,000 SSM timeseries, evaluated using ERA5-Land and compared to 264 precipitation stations from Geosphere for the period from 2016 to 2024. The results show satisfactory agreement with ERA5-Land (Pearson correlation > 0.46 below 400 m) and capture in situ precipitation-driven anomalies with the strongest performance below 400 m (Spearman correlation > 0.47), particularly over grasslands and south-facing slopes. Despite its limitations at high elevation and over dense vegetation, Sentinel-1 provides consistent and elevation-stratified information across more than 80% of the Austrian Alps, typically excluded from operational products. The new Alpine SSM product highlights Sentinel-1’s potential to support hydrological modeling, drought monitoring, and water resource management across complex topography such as the Alps.
Keywords: Sentinel-1; soil moisture; topography; microwave; spatial resampling Sentinel-1; soil moisture; topography; microwave; spatial resampling

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Massart, S.; Vreugdenhil, M.; Parajka, J.; Villegas-Lituma, C.; Borlaf-Mena, I.; Sleziak, P.; Wagner, W. Filling the Gap: Elevation-Based Sentinel-1 Surface Soil Moisture Retrieval over the Austrian Alps. Remote Sens. 2026, 18, 855. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18060855

AMA Style

Massart S, Vreugdenhil M, Parajka J, Villegas-Lituma C, Borlaf-Mena I, Sleziak P, Wagner W. Filling the Gap: Elevation-Based Sentinel-1 Surface Soil Moisture Retrieval over the Austrian Alps. Remote Sensing. 2026; 18(6):855. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18060855

Chicago/Turabian Style

Massart, Samuel, Mariette Vreugdenhil, Juraj Parajka, Carina Villegas-Lituma, Ignacio Borlaf-Mena, Patrik Sleziak, and Wolfgang Wagner. 2026. "Filling the Gap: Elevation-Based Sentinel-1 Surface Soil Moisture Retrieval over the Austrian Alps" Remote Sensing 18, no. 6: 855. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18060855

APA Style

Massart, S., Vreugdenhil, M., Parajka, J., Villegas-Lituma, C., Borlaf-Mena, I., Sleziak, P., & Wagner, W. (2026). Filling the Gap: Elevation-Based Sentinel-1 Surface Soil Moisture Retrieval over the Austrian Alps. Remote Sensing, 18(6), 855. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18060855

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