A study of soil moisture estimation from multi-temporal L-band radar observations of vegetated surfaces

L-band radar remote sensing of soil moisture has been the subject of research for several decades and has seen increasing attention in recent years. Soil moisture inversion from radar backscatter measurements in the presence of vegetation is a complex and difficult task. Several methods for deriving soil moisture estimates from such measurements have been explored, but these methods typically require the availability of a robust forward model and/or the use of ancillary data such as a vegetation estimator. This study presents a retrieval algorithm which requires neither an advanced forward scattering model nor ancillary vegetation data.