CROSS-COMPARISON OF THREE SAR SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVAL ALGORITHMS USING SYNTHETIC AND EXPERIMENTAL DATA

The objective of this study is to cross-compare three algorithms for retrieving surface soil moisture (SSM) from ESA's Sentinel-1 (S-1) data. The context is provided by the large scientific and application interest in SSM products at high resolution and regional/continental scale that can be retrieved from S-1 data alone or in combination with other missions such as NASA/SMAP and ESA/SMOS. Of the three investigated algorithms, one inverts a scattering model exploiting a Bayesian approach, whereas the other two are change detection approaches. The cross-comparison is carried out by using both simulated and experimental data. Strengths and weaknesses of the three algorithms are identified and discussed.