Estimation of Surface Soil Moisture from Satellite Images Using Vegetation and Thermal Indices

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Student of Irrigation and Drainage, Department of Water Engineering, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University

2 Professor, Department of Water Engineering, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University

3 MS Graduate Agrometeorology, Department of Water Engineering, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University

4 Associate Professor, Department of Water Engineering, Gorgan Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University

Abstract

Estimating soil moisture along a vast area is mostly expensive and sometimes undoable. One of the newly available technique is remote sensing, which allows the possible surface soil moisture estimates in a large scale. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate the possibility of estimating surface soil moisture using MODIS satellite images in compare to soil moisture measured data. To conduct this research, vegetation and temperature indices from MODIS images were extracted from October 2013 to June 2014 period for Gonbad-e Qavus region, then measurements were calibrated with field measurement data. The results indicated that significant but weak correlations are available between NDVI and NMDI indices with measured surface soil moistures (R= 0.62), while there were highly significant, but negative correlations (p ≤ 0.01; R = -0.89) for LST index and thermal bands of 31 and 32 with surface soil moistures. The TVDI index also had highly significant, but negative correlation (p ≤ 0.01; R = -0.90) with surface soil moisture. There were also highly significant linear and exponential correlations between SWI index and surface soil moisture. In conclusion, the results indicate promising relations for thermal and combined models to estimate surface soil moisture relative to vegetation models.

Keywords


بابا­زاده، ح.، نوروزی اقدم،الف.،عقیقی،ح.، شمس نیا،س.الف و خدادادی دهکردی، د. 1391. تخمین رطوبت لایه سطحی خاک اراضی مرتعی مناطق خشک و نیمه خشک با استفاده از شاخص دما و پوشش گیاهی (مطالعه موردی: استان خراسان)، فصلنامه علمی-پژوهشی تحقیقات مرتع و بیابان ایران. جلد 19، شماره 1، صفحه 132-120.
عسکری شهید،م.، شاکری پور، م.، درویشی بلورانی، ع و میرزاپور، ف. 1393. بررسی تاثیر قدرت تفکیک مکانی سنجنده و پوشش سطحی تصاویر ماهواره­ای MODIS و ETM+  بر شاخص خشکی دما- گیاه TVDI جهت پایش خشکسالی، بیست و یکمین همایش ملی ژئوماتیک.
علوی‌پناه، ک. 1382. کاربرد سنجش‌ازدور در علوم زمین (علوم خاک). انتشارات دانشگاه تهران. 438ص.
فلاح، م.، وظیفه­دوست، م.، نوری، ح. و لیاقت، م. 1393. استفاده از شاخص رطوبت خاک (SWI) حاصل از تولیدات سنجنده مودیس در تخمین مودیس در تخمین رطوبت خاک زراعی (مطالعه موردی: بخشی از اراضی قزوین). اولین همایش ملی بهینه­سازی مصرف آب.
قائمی بیگی، م.، رائینی سرجاز، م و موسوی بایگی، م. 1391. ارزیابی و برآورد تبخیر- تعرق گندم در مراحل مختلف رشد با روش تراز انرژی (نسبت باون) و مقایسه آن با نتایج لایسیمتر. نشریه آب و خاک (علوم و صنایع کشاورزی)، جلد 26، شماره 5، صفحه 1160-1152.
کشاورز،م.ر.، وظیفه دوست،م.، علیزاده، الف و اسدی،ع. 1390. استخراج و روندیابی رطوبت خاک به کمک داده­های ماهواره­ای سنجنده مودیس( مطالعه موردی: استان اصفهان). نشریه آبیاری و زهکشی ایران، جلد 5، شماره 2، صفحه 219-209.
نوروزی اقدم، الف.، بهبهانی،س.م.ر.، رحیمی خوب، ع و عقیقی،ح. 1387. مدل رطوبتی لایه سطحی خاک با استفاده از شاخص NDVI  (مطالعه موردی: مراتع استان خراسان رضوی). مجله محیط شناسی، جلد 34، شماره 48، صفحه 127-136.
Adegoke,J.O., and Carleton,A.M. 2002. Relations between soil moisture and satellite vegetation indices in the U.S. corn belt, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 3:395-405.
Carlson,T. 2007. An Overview of the "Triangle Method" for Estimating Surface Evapotranspiration and Soil Moisture from Satellite Imagery. Sensors, 7: 1612-1629.
Gao,Z., Gao,W and Chang,N.B. 2011. Integrating temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) and regional water stress index (RWSI) for drought assessment with the aid of LANDSAT TM/ETM+ images. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. 13:495–503.
Goetz,S.J. 1997. Multisensory  analysis of NDVI, surface temperature and biophysical ariables at a mixed grassland ite.International Journal of Remote Sensing.18.1: 71– 94.
Gutman,G. 1990. Towards monitoring drought from space. Journal of Climate. 3: 282-295.
Kumar Sen,P. 2004. Diagnosing Irrigation Water Resourses with Multi Sensor Remote sensing and GIS Tecniques (A case study of the Roxo Dam Irrigation System, Portugal). International Institute for Geo Information Science and Earth Observation Enschede, the Netherlands.
Mallick,K., Bhattacharya,B.K  and Patel,N.K. 2009. Estimating volumetric surface moisture content for cropped soils using a soil wetness index based on surface temperature and NDVI. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. 149: 1327– 1342.
105:69–80. 
Patel,N.R. Anapashsha,R. Kumar,S.S. Saha,K. and Dadhwal,K. 2009. Assessing potential of MODIS derived temperature/vegetation condition index (TVDI) to infer soil moisture status. International Journal of Remote Sensing. 30.1: 23–39.
Price,J.C. 1990. Using Spatial Context in Satellite Data to Infer Regional Scale Evapotranspiration. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 28: 940-948.
Sandholt,I., Rasmussen,K  and Andersen,J. 2002. A simple interpretation of the surface temperature/vegetation index space for assessment of surface moisture status. Remote Sensing of Environment, 79: 213– 224.
Tucher,C.J. 1989. Comparing SMMR and AVHRR data for drought monitoring. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 10: 1663-1672.
Wang,J. 2000. Relations between productivity, climate, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index in the central Great Plains. Lawrence: University of Kansas (PhD dissertation).
Wang,X. 2005. Relation between ground- based soil moisture and satellite image – based NDVI.
Wang,J., Price,K.P and Rich,P.M. 2001. Spatial patterns of NDVI in response to precipitation and temperature in the central Great Plains. International Journal of  Remote Sensing, 22: 3827– 3844.
Wang,L and QU,J.J.  2007. NMDI: A Normalized Multi-Band Drought Index For Monitoring Soil And Vegetation Moisture With Satellite Remote Sensing. Geophysical Research Letters 34: L20405, 1-5.
Zhao,S., Yang,Y., Qiu,G., Qin,Q., Yao,Y.,  Xiong,Y and Li,C. 2010.  Remote detection of bare soil moisture using a surface-temperature-based soil evaporation transfer coefficient, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. 12: 351-358