Satellite Soil Moisture Estimation, Assessment, and Applications (Second Edition)
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Remote Sensing in Geology, Geomorphology and Hydrology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 26
Special Issue Editors
Interests: microwave soil moisture modeling; validation; carbon cycle estimation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: microwave remote sensing; ecohydrology; agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: remote sensing; water cycle; carbon cycle; wetlands
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: microwave remote sensing; soil moisture; land surface data assimilation; hydrological model; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Soil moisture, identified by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV), plays a pivotal role in regulating water and energy exchanges within the soil–vegetation–atmosphere continuum, from local watersheds to the global scale. It influences the partitioning of precipitation into evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and infiltration, thereby affecting hydrological and climatic processes. Accurate global monitoring of soil moisture from space is important for improving land and weather forecasts; understanding water, energy, and carbon cycles; and enhancing management of water and food resources. Today, multiple space-borne platforms, such as the ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite and NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite, provide unprecedented opportunities to analyze soil moisture. Looking ahead, ESA’s Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR), expected to launch in 2029, will operate across multiple microwave frequencies, further advancing soil moisture monitoring. However, the measurement of soil moisture remains challenging due to limited satellite observations; the high correlation between different polarizations, angles, and channels; and uncertainties in radiative transfer models and ancillary datasets.
Therefore, topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Advancing remote sensing techniques in retrieving soil moisture and/or relevant parameters, such as vegetation optical depth, vegetation scattering albedo, and surface soil roughness;
- Exploration of synergistic use of multi-sensor data (e.g., SMOS, SMAP, AMSR2, and CYGNSS) for improving soil moisture estimation;
- Development and benchmarking of soil moisture retrieval algorithms for upcoming missions, such as CIMR
- AI-based methods and hybrid approaches for enhancing retrievals under complex surface conditions;
- Validation/comparison of soil moisture products;
- Airborne calibration/validation experiments;
- Assimilating soil moisture into hydrological/atmospheric/vegetation models;
- Integration of remote sensing and in situ observations;
- Downscaling soil moisture products.
Dr. Xiaojun Li
Dr. Lun Gao
Dr. Frédéric Frappart
Dr. Hui Lu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- surface and root-zone soil moisture
- passive and active microwaves
- SMOS/SMAP/AMSR2/CIMR
- vegetation optical depth
- evaluation/intercomparison
- data assimilation
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