Potential for phase-based surface moisture estimation with C-band SAR data

Abstract:
Soil moisture estimation with SAR is currently based on the backscatter image. However, there are evidences that soil or vegetation moisture can influence the interferometric phase and alter ground deformation measurements. A novel phase-based moisture retrieval method, which could both improve ground deformation and moisture measurements, has in the past been presented and to some extend validated. In this paper we will show our first inversion results based on Sentinel-1 C-band images; we compare incoherent and coherent methods; we conclude that the possibility of integrating incoherent and coherent moisture estimation is becoming realistic and should therefore be thoroughly investigated.