Ethiopia

Satellite Remote Sensing for Soil Moisture
Estimation: Gumara Catchment, Ethiopia
Dagnenet Fenta Mekonnen

March, 2009
Satellite remote sensing for soil moisture estimation:

Gumara catchment, Ethiopia
By
Dagnenet Fenta Mekonnen
Thesis submitted to the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation in
partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geo-information Science
and Earth Observation, Specialisation: (Integrated Watershed Modelling and Management)
Thesis Assessment Board

Chairman
External Examiner
First Supervisor
Second Supervisor
Member
Prof. Dr. Ing. Wout Verhoef

Drs. Jennifer Grant
Dr. Ir. Christiaan van der Tol
Dr. Ing. T.H.M. Rientjes
Dr. Zoltan Vekerdy
WREM Departement, ITC, Enschede

Vrije University, Amsterdam
WREM Department, ITC, Enschede
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION

ENSCHEDE, THE NETHERLANDS
Disclaimer
This document describes work undertaken as part of a programme of study at the International
Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation. All views and opinions expressed
therein remain the sole responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of
the institute.
Abstract
Soil moisture is an important variable in hydrology: it affects the partitioning of rainfall into runoff
and infiltration, and the partitioning of incoming solar radiation into latent and sensible heat. Soil
moisture is however difficult to measure at the spatial scale of a catchment. The conventional point
measurement based methods such as the neutron probe or gravimetric method are not appropriate for
understanding of the spatial and temporal behaviour of soil moisture. Due to the heterogeneity of soil
type, land use and topography, soil moisture may change considerably in space and time. Soil
moisture can also be measured by microwave remote sensing under some topographic and vegetation
cover conditions, but the spatial resolution for passive microwave and temporal resolution for active
microwave commonly is low and the method cannot be applied in densely vegetated areas.
An alternative approach based on optical and thermal remote sensing (the triangle method) has
recently been proposed and tested to estimate soil moisture at a resolution high enough to serve
applications such as semi or fully distributed hydrological modelling. This approach is based on
correlating Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST)
retrieved from remote sensing to the ground measured soil moisture. In this study, the triangle method
was tested for the Gumara catchment in northwest Ethiopia. Observed soil moisture was regressed
with scaled NDVI and LST retrieved from atmospherically corrected MODIS images at 1km
resolution by applying 2nd and 3rd order polynomial relations, and maps of soil moisture were
produced for the catchment for 9 days in September 2008.
A total of 49 sampling schemes using gravimetric and indirect soil moisture measurements by theta
probe were carried out during a field campaign in September 2008. A field station provided
continuous radiometric surface temperature data was installed in the study area during field campaign.
MODIS Aqua and Terra images were collected for 9 days from September 18, 2008 to September 29,
2008. For LST, a comparison was made between values computed using the split window method and
the MODIS LST product. The latter was used for further analysis, because it correlated well with the
ground measurements. Both actual LST from the MODIS product as well as elevation corrected
potential surface temperature were used. From the ground based measurements of soil moisture, 35
sampling points were used for calibration, and 14 sampling points for validation.
Ground measured soil moisture compared well with simulated soil moisture R2 greater than 0.7 and
RMSE of 0.045 is obtained. Applying the potential surface temperature could minimize the
topographic effect that is induced from LST on the simulated soil moisture, especially on high
elevated areas. Statistical spatio-temporal analysis was done to see the temporal as well as the spatial
variability of soil moisture in the catchment. According to the statistical spatio-temporal analysis, the
high elevated area resembles high mean soil moisture, low coefficient of variability and time stable
condition. But after elevation correction the high elevated area resembles low soil moisture than low
elevated area. Also, elevation is found to be the dominant terrain controlling factor for the simulated
soil moisture simulated by the developed algorithm. The temporal variability of soil moisture among
the pixels in a catchment is high, as compared to the spatial variability of the catchment during the
study period.
Key words: Triangle method, LST, NDVI, potential surface temperature, soil moisture.
i
Acknowledgements
My greatest thanks go to the Almighty God; I dont have sufficient words to praise you. Your grace
was enough for me.
I would like to express my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the Netherlands Government through the
Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) for granting me the opportunity to pursue this course of
study without which I would not have realized my dream to further my studies.
I am tremendously grateful thanks to my first supervisor Dr. Ir. Christiaan van der Tol for his earnest
guidance, critical comments and timely suggestions that made this research a success. His support
and advice makes me motivated and energetic all the way through this study.
My special thanks also go to my second supervisor, Dr. Ing. T.H.M. Rientjes for all his kind advice
and valuable comments starting from proposal writing and field work till the end of the course
research. Equally important, I extend my deep gratitude to Dr. Zoltan Vekerdy for all his effort to
support and comment in revising the research critically.
I would like to express my gratitude to my employer the Amhara National Regional State Water
Resource Development Bureau for providing the logistics for my field work and permitting me to
pursue this study. I also extend my special thanks to Ato Muche, the driver of my employer for his
kind assistance during field work and also for the WRD Bureau soil laboratory technicians for their
valuable contribution.
I earnestly thank to all those WREM staffs that have indeed contribute in my studies in the department
either teaching me or contributing through providing me technical advice and study material.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to my wife Yenezewud Belay for your patience, support and
encouragement and, those special words especially through the hardest time gave me the courage to
continue. Special thanks go to all my dear parents who have been my mentors always supportive and
using me on.
Last but not least, I would like to extend my earnest thanks to my classmates, friends and colleagues
who put a drop of contribution in any ways in my study.
ii
Table of contents
1.
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.
1.2.
1.3.
1.4.
1.5.
1.6.
1.7.
2.
Description of study area .................................................................................................... 5

2.1.
2.2.
2.3.
2.4.
2.5.
3.
Climate setting of the study area................................................................................. 5

Topography................................................................................................................. 7
Hydrology ................................................................................................................... 8
Soil.............................................................................................................................. 9
Land cover ................................................................................................................ 11
Field work and materials used .......................................................................................... 13

3.1.
3.2.
3.3.
3.4.
4.
Background................................................................................................................. 1
Relevance of the study................................................................................................ 2
Research problem ....................................................................................................... 2
Objective of the study................................................................................................. 3
Research questions...................................................................................................... 3
Hypothesis .................................................................................................................. 4
Thesis outlines ............................................................................................................ 4
Soil moisture measurement....................................................................................... 13

Air and surface temperature measurements.............................................................. 15
MODIS sensor .......................................................................................................... 16
Acquiring of MODIS image ..................................................................................... 17
Literature review about remote sensing and triangle method for soil moisture................ 19
4.1. Remote sensing of soil moisture............................................................................... 19
4.1.1. Gamma radiation techniques .......................................................................... 20
4.1.2. Reflected solar techniques.............................................................................. 20
4.1.3. Thermal technique.......................................................................................... 20
4.1.4. Microwave techniques.................................................................................... 21
4.2. Soil moisture quantification using the triangle method............................................ 23
4.2.1. Description of triangle method....................................................................... 23
4.2.2. Previous studies of soil moisture using the triangle method .......................... 24
5.
Methodology..................................................................................................................... 27
5.1. General approach of the triangle method.................................................................. 27
5.2. Remote sensing......................................................................................................... 30
5.2.1. NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) ......................................... 31
5.2.2. Land Surface Temperature computation using split window techniques....... 35
5.2.3. Land surface temperature products from MODIS sensor............................... 39
5.2.4. Potential temperature...................................................................................... 41
5.3. Algorithm Development ........................................................................................... 41
5.4. Statistical analysis..................................................................................................... 43
6.
Results, analysis and discussion ....................................................................................... 45

6.1. Observed soil moisture ............................................................................................. 45
6.2. Remote sensing measurements ................................................................................. 45
iii
6.3.
6.4.
6.5.
6.6.
6.7.
6.8.
7.
6.2.1. NDVI ..............................................................................................................45

6.2.2. LST (Land Surface Temperature)...................................................................47
Scatter plots of NDVI and LST.................................................................................49
Simulated soil moisture.............................................................................................51
6.4.1. Cross correlation between simulated and observed soil moisture ..................53
6.4.2. Sensitivity Analysis ........................................................................................54
6.4.3. Comparisons of the algorithms.......................................................................56
Statistical analysis and results of spatio-temporal variation of soil moisture ...........57
Elevation correction for the simulated soil moisture ................................................61
6.6.1. Potential surface temperature .........................................................................61
6.6.2. Simulated soil moisture using 2nd order relation to NDVI and potential
temperature .....................................................................................................61
Simulated soil moisture at different elevation zones before and after correction.....63
Discussion .................................................................................................................66
Conclusion and Recommendations...................................................................................68

7.1. Conclusion ................................................................................................................68
7.2. Recommendation ......................................................................................................70
References .................................................................................................................................71
Annexes.....................................................................................................................................73
Appendix-1 DEM hydro processing procedure.................................................................73
Appendix-2 Ground observed soil moisture data..............................................................74
Appendix-3 Techniques or methods used to measure soil moisture content ....................75
Appendix-4 ILWIS script to retrieve LST from MODIS ..................................................77
Appendix-5 Least square method of 2nd order polynomial relation algorithm..................79
Appendix-6 Least square method of 3rd order polynomial relation NDVI*algorithm ......81
Appendix-7 Least square method of 3rd order polynomial relation Fr algorithm..............83
Appendix-8 NDVI map .....................................................................................................85
Appendix-9 MODIS LST product and potential surface temperature...............................86
Appendix-10 Simulated soil moisture maps after elevation correction ............................88
Appendix-11 Least square method 2nd order relation with potential temperature ............89
iv
List of figures
Figure 2-1 Location maps of the study area and soil moisture sample points ........................................5
Figure 2-2 Monthly average rainfall in the Gumara catchment from (2004-2007) ................................6
Figure 2-3 Average measured yearly rainfall at 3 stations and areal rainfall of Gumara catchment
(2004-2007)..............................................................................................................................................6
Figure 2-4 Daily maximum temperature at three stations (2003-2007)..................................................7
Figure 2-5 Daily minimum temperatures at three stations (2003-2007) .................................................7
Figure 2-6 Daily average temperatures for three stations (2003-2007) ..................................................7
Figure 2-7 Digital Elevation Model in m.a.s.l of the study area (processed from SRTM data) .............8
Figure 2-8 Monthly average daily flow of the Gumara River and areal average rainfall of the Gumara
catchment .................................................................................................................................................9
Figure 2-9 Annual average daily flow of the Gumara River...................................................................9
Figure 2-10 Major soil groups according to the FAO classification.....................................................10
Figure 2-11 Land cover map of the Gumara catchment.........................................................................12
Figure 3-1 Sampling schemes at different land covers and sites of in-situ measurements of soil
moisture:.................................................................................................................................................14
Figure 3-2 Surface temperatures from infrared gun and remote sensing..............................................15
Figure 3-3 Weather station and radiometer installed during field work ................................................16
Figure 3-4 Air temperature obtained from weather station and Sonic Anemometer. ...........................16
Figure 3-5 Terra satellite-right and Aqua-left ........................................................................................17
Figure 4-1 Universal triangle: schematic relationship between soil moisture, temperature and NDVI ,
source (Chauhan et al., 2003).................................................................................................................23
Figure 5-1 Flow diagram of the general procedure for soil moisture estimation from remote sensing
using triangle method .............................................................................................................................30
Figure 5-2 General procedures to retrieve NDVI from MODIS ............................................................34
Figure 5-3 Methodology to retrieve land surface temperature (modified after Mao et al., 2005).........36
Figure 5-4 MODIS sinusoidal grid system.............................................................................................40
Figure 6-1 Correlation of soil moisture between direct and indirect methods.......................................45
Figure 6-2 Average NDVIs of the study area before and after atmospheric correction ........................46
Figure 6-3 NDVI map from MODIS data Sep.23, 2008 before atmospheric correction .......................47
Figure 6-4 NDVI map from MODIS data Sep.23, 2008 after atmospheric correction ..........................47
Figure 6-5 LST obtained from radiometric measurements and from MODIS instrument.....................48
Figure 6-6 MODIS LST product Sep.23, 2008 ......................................................................................48
Figure 6-7 LST calculated by split window technique for MODIS image Sep.23, 2008 ......................49
Figure 6-8 Scatter plots of LST vs NDVI of Sep.24, 2008 upper and Sep.18, 2008 lower:.................50
Figure 6-9 Simulated soil moisture by (a) 2nd and (b) 3rd order polynomial relation Sep.23, 2008.......52
Figure 6-10 Simulated soil moisture by 3rdorder Fr and LST Sep.23, 2008 ..........................................52
Figure 6-11 Correlation of observed and simulated soil moisture using 2nd order polynomial relation
................................................................................................................................................................53
Figure 6-12 Correlation of observed and simulated soil moisture from 3rd order polynomial relation 53
Figure 6-13 Correlation of observed and simulated soil moisture from 3rd order relation of Fr ..........54
Figure 6-14 Sensitivity analysis of the 2nd order relation (a) R2 (b) RMSE...........................................55
Figure 6-15 Sensitivity analysis of the 3rd order polynomial relation (a) R2 (b) RMSE........................56
v
Figure 6-16 Spatial average of NDVI, the LST product and the calculated LST during study period. 56
Figure 6-17 Average of soil moisture for 3 algorithms and air temperature......................................... 57
Figure 6-18 Statistical representation of simulated soil moisture of the study area:(a) standard
deviation and (b) coefficient of variation versus spatial mean soil moisture for each day................... 57
Figure 6-19 (a) Temporal mean of the simulated soil moisture (cm3cm-3) and (b) coefficient of
variation, CVs, at pixel level during the study period. .......................................................................... 58
Figure 6-20 Root mean square error of the relative difference, RMSEi, of the estimated soil moisture
............................................................................................................................................................... 58
Figure 6-21 Joint distribution of terrain attributes and simulated soil moisture................................... 60
Figure 6-22 Potential temperature map of Sep.23, 2008....................................................................... 61
Figure 6-23 simulated soil moisture by 2nd order relation with potential temperature (Sep.23, 2008). 62
Figure 6-24 Correlations of observed and simulated soil moisture by the 2nd order polynomial relation
using potential temperature ................................................................................................................... 62
Figure 6-25 Elevation zone map of Gumara catchment ....................................................................... 63
Figure 6-26 Average Soil moisture for 3 elevation zones before correction ........................................ 64
Figure 6-27 Average LST for 3 elevation zones and air temperature at low elevation area................. 64
Figure 6-28 Average Soil moisture at 3 elevation zones simulated after elevation correction............. 65
vi
List of tables
Table 2-1Thiesen polygon weights of the 3 rainfall stations ...................................................................6
Table 2-2 soil properties of the three major soil groups ........................................................................10
Table 3-1 MODIS visible, NIR, thermal bands and potential applications ...........................................17
Table 3-2 General descriptions of MODIS level 1 raw data..................................................................18
Table 4-1 Summary of remote sensing techniques for measuring soil moisture (Engman and Gurney,
1991) ......................................................................................................................................................19
Table 5-1 Phases and schematic processing steps for the triangle method from remote sensing.........27
Table 5-2 MODIS/Terra solar and sensor zenith angle and atmospheric parameters............................33
Table 5-3 Summery of MODIS LST products.......................................................................................39
Table 6-1 NDVI values for Gumara catchment .....................................................................................46
Table 6-2 Minimum, maximum and average LST products and LST calculated ..................................49
Table 6-3 Coefficients for 2nd order polynomial relations .....................................................................51
Table 6-4 Coefficients for 3rd order polynomial relation with N* .........................................................51
Table 6-5 Coefficients for 3rd order polynomial relation with Fr ..........................................................52
Table 6-6 Average soil moisture of Gumara catchment using three algorithms developed ..................52
Table 6-7 Coefficients for 2nd order polynomial relation for potential temperature..............................62
Table 6-8 Average soil moisture and LST of each zone simulated by 2nd order relation with LST ......63
Table 6-9 Spatial average soil moisture before and after local correction ............................................65
vii
SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING FOR SOIL MOISTURE ESTIMATION: GUMARA CATCHMENT, ETHIOPIA
1. Introduction
Soil moisture is an important bio-physical parameter that is used as interface for the land surface and
for the atmosphere and it is also a key hydrologic state variable linked to water availability, the
processes of evapotranspiration, runoff generation from rainfall and for irrigation scheduling. The soil
moisture distribution over the area can be determined by the exchange of physical processes between
the land surface and the atmosphere. It also used as a control volume for storing water for the proper
plant growth.
1.1.
Background
The hydrological cycle is one of the most important but also some times poorly understood Earth
System processes. It involves the journey of water from the Earth's surface to the atmosphere, and
back again. This gigantic system, which is responsible for the continuous exchange of moisture
between our planets oceans, atmosphere, and a land surface, is powered by the energy from the Sun.
The bulk of the Earths water (about 96.5%) is stored in the global oceans, about 1.7% is stored in the
polar ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow fields, and another 1.7% is stored in groundwater, lakes,
rivers, streams, and soil (Peixoto and Kettani, 1973). This complex hydrological cycle and the
quantity of water can be modelled through hydrological, meteorological and climatological modelling
at regional and global scale which requires the information of a number of input parameters and state
variables. Among the number of state variables soil moisture is found to be one of the most important
and plays a significant role in hydrological modelling.
Soil moisture is important to the hydrologic research for partitioning rainfall in to runoff and
infiltration components as well as separating incoming solar radiation into latent and sensible heat. It
determines the soil water content available for vegetation and affects the vegetation processes such as
the transpiration and plant growth. However, this important bio-physical variable is difficult to
measure at large scale.
Soil physical and hydraulic properties are of prime interest for water and energy balance studies and
simulations of land surface atmosphere interaction at various scales. Although soil properties are
typically measured in the field at the point scale, such data commonly are unavailable over large
areas, have limitations in accounting for regional spatial variability, the prohibitively expensive,
tedious and time consuming.
Methods based on remote sensing provide alternative tools to obtain quick estimates of soil properties
(Mattikalli et al., 1998). Both active and passive microwave remotely-sensed data have a great
potential for providing areal estimates of soil moisture. Although remote sensing of soil moisture can
be accomplished to some degree or other by all regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, only the
microwave region offers truly quantitative measurements (Engman and Gurney, 1991) because the
primary physical property that affects the measurement is directly dependent on the amount of water
present in the soil. However, microwave remote sensing is only applicable at global scale due to its
1
limited temporal and spatial resolution. Therefore, other approach combining optical/IR remote
sensing proposed by Carlson et al. (1994) is the best option for retrieving soil moisture at reasonably
high resolution which can be applied for regional scale.
1.2.
Relevance of the study
Studying spatial distribution of soil moisture at regional level is highly important for many
hydrological applications such as river flow forecasting, planning and designing of irrigation as well
as hydraulic structures and for soil conservation measures. The vertical and lateral movement of
rainfall on the surface and inside the soil is governed by the hydraulic conductivity and intake
capacity of soil during rainfall events which are partly determined by soil moisture content that will
influence infiltration and runoff processes. Because of the difficulty to measure soil moisture both
spatially and temporally, using the conventional point scale measurement method, many hydrological
modelling uses lump some soil information not discrete soil information. The existing point based soil
moisture measurement methods such as Theta probe or gravimetric method are not appropriate for
complete understanding of the spatial and temporal behaviour of soil moisture. Due to heterogeneity
of soil type, land use and topography, soil moisture may change considerably in space and depth
during any time interval (Haider et al., 2004).
Regarding the water resources development, there is increasing water utilization along the lower Nile
valley Egypt and Sudan straining the limited freshwater resources of the basin. Similarly, there is an
increasing demand for irrigation and hydropower development in Ethiopia the source of Blue Nile.
The country Ethiopia is experiencing a number of problems such as rapid population growth, limited
water resources, environmental degradation and poverty, to cope with the recurrent drought and its
impacts and to increase agricultural production to cope with increasing population (Kebede et al.,
2006). Therefore, to make efficient use of water resource with balanced attention for maximizing
economic, social, and environmental benefits, it is necessary to have effective integrated water
management. Therefore, studying soil moisture at this catchment is vital and prerequisite because soil
moisture is one of the most important initial variables for modelling water balance and for the proper
irrigation management of the catchment.
1.3.
Research problem
Soil moisture is highly variable biophysical parameter in time (t), depth (d) and in horizontal
direction. Therefore, to describe soil moisture behaviour in a complete manner it needs frequent and
multiple measurements in the three dimensional (x, y, z) space. Despite the above, our understanding
of the role of the soil moisture in hydrology, ecosystem processes and biogeochemistry, has been
developed from point studies where the emphasis has been on the variability of soil moisture with
depth and time.
The most advanced in situ soil moisture equipment describes only the temporal variability at one
particular location. The large spatial and temporal variability that soil moisture exhibits in a natural
environment is exactly which makes it difficult to measure and use in earth science applications.
Conventional interpolation methods between points of measurement therefore often do not yield very
satisfactory results because the methods do not consider variability of surface roughness, vegetation
2
cover, topography and other antecedent conditions. This is the main reason to explore other
techniques such as remote sensing and data assimilation. Providing a soil moisture product at
catchment scale for research and application remains a significant challenge and therefore the
estimation of regional scale soil moisture by remote sensing measurements may lead to the
improvement of earth science applications.
A major focus of remote sensing research in hydrology has been on developing approaches for
estimating hydro-meteorological states and fluxes in a distributed fashion. The primary set of state
variables include land surface temperature, near surface soil moisture, snow cover/water equivalent,
water quality, landscape roughness, land use, vegetation canopy and bare soil temperature, surface
albedo and vegetation cover. The hydro-meteorological fluxes are primarily soil evaporation, rainfall
rate, recharge rate, sub surface runoff and plant transpiration or evapotranspiration, and snow melt
runoff (Schmugge et al., 2002).
Hydrological state variables to a large extent reflect on the hydrology and related behaviour in a
system. State variables commonly are assessed by collecting point data in the field, and this method is
time consuming and not appropriate for understanding the spatial and temporal behaviour of the
states. Therefore, the challenge in this research is to test a novel optical/IR remote sensing technique
based on triangle method as proposed by Wang et al. (2007) to obtain 1km spatial and daily temporal
patterns of hydrological states soil moisture in Gumara catchment.
1.4.
Objective of the study
The main objective of this study is to provide distributed soil moisture information at catchment scale
with reasonable spatial and temporal resolution. This is required for improving climatic and
hydrologic modelling and prediction particularly for distributed models. Also, estimation of soil
moisture at various temporal and spatial scales is a key to strategic management of water resources.
Specifically
To estimate and map soil moisture at 1km spatial resolution using Optical/thermal IR remote
sensing and ground based measurements.
To test and possibly improve an algorithm for soil moisture estimation from the point scale
measured soil moisture and remote sensing NDVI and land surface temperature.
To analyze the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture during the study period.
1.5.
Research questions
Is it possible to estimate soil moisture using satellite remote sensing at 1km spatial resolution
for a catchment which has about 1900 m altitude difference?
Which surface parameters are the most relevant to derive soil moisture using optical and
infrared remote sensing technique?
Which surface parameters are the most sensitive for soil moisture in the method applied for
this study?
Which algorithm gives most optimal result for soil moisture estimation from remote sensing?
How does the soil moisture content relate to terrain controlling factors in the study area?
1.6.
1.7.
Hypothesis
Different orders of polynomial relations of observed soil moisture with remote sensing scaled
NDVI and LST can give similar results at the same spatial and temporal resolution in a
particular catchment.
The spatial variability of soil moisture is higher than the temporal variability during the study
period.
Land surface temperature is the most sensitive variable for the method applied.
Thesis outlines
The thesis contains seven chapters and has the following outlines:
Chapter 1 gives a general introduction with emphasis on importance and application of soil moisture,
relevance and problem statement of the study. Chapter 2 gives a brief description of the study area
that covers climate, hydrology, topography, soil and land cover. Chapter 3 emphasises on field work
and materials used for the study. Chapter 4 presents a literature review about the triangle method and
remote sensing for soil moisture. Chapter 5 discusses the methods applied for this study. Chapter 6
presents the results, analysis and discussion of the study. Finally, chapter 7 deals with conclusion and
recommendation.
2. Description of study area

The Lake Tana basins chosen for soil moisture estimation using remote sensing are located in the
north-western part of Ethiopian plateau. Of more than 40 rivers feeding the lake, Gilgel-Abay, Ribb,
Gumara and Megech contribute more than 45-55 % of the inflow (Abeyou, 2008). This study focuses
on the Gumara catchment, which covers the area of about 1768 km2 produces a mean annual flow of
1229 MCM (Abeyou, 2008). The topography of the watershed can be categorized in two main parts.
The upper most part is mountainous and rugged and the lower part is relatively gentle and plain. The
Gumara catchment contributes a significant amount of inflow to the Lake Tana and consequently the
low land part of the catchment is severely affected by flooding.
Sampling points
Small towns
Drainage lines
Figure 2-1 Location maps of the study area and soil moisture sample points
2.1.
Climate setting of the study area
The climate of the Gumara catchment is marked by a rainy season from May to September, with
monthly rainfall varying from 72 mm in May to 419 mm in July. The areal rainfall of Gumara
catchment is calculated from the point rainfall of the three stations located around the study area
using Thiessen polygon method. Thiessen polygon is formed by interpolating the point map
produced from the coordinates of the three rainfall stations and the weights of the stations are
calculated by taking the area coverage of each station to the total area of the catchment extracted
from SRTM. The three rainfall stations are located at small towns of DebreTabor, Amedber and
Wereta as shown in Figure 2-1. Thiessen weights of the stations are shown on Table 2-1. Mean
annual precipitation is about 1,492 mm in the upper part of the catchment at Debre Tabor station
and about 1,378 mm in the lower part of the catchment at Wereta station. The dry season, from
October to April, has a total rainfall of about 8% of the mean annual rainfall. Based on long term
5
records the average temperature variations throughout the year are minor 12.6 C in December
(Debre Tabor) to 25.2 C in May (Wereta), with monthly average daily maximum and minimum
temperatures of 34.0 C (Wereta) and 2.8 C (Debre Tabor), respectively. Humidity varies
between 70% in Dec. and 88% in August. Wind speed is low, which limits potential
evapotranspiration to values between 95 mm/month in December and 140 mm/month in April.
Sunshine duration is reduced to 6.06.5 hours during July and August based on Debre Tabor
meteorological station records.
Table 2-1Thiesen polygon weights of the 3 rainfall stations
Stations
Thiessen
weights
0.34
0.32
0.34
Wereta
Amed ber
Debre Tabor
450
400
Rainfall (mm)
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
be
r
De
ce
m
be
r
er
ve
m
No
be
ct
ob
O
pt
em
gu
Se
Month
st
ly
Au
Ju
ne
Ju
ay
M
ril
Ap
ar
ch
M
ua
ry
br
Fe
Ja
nu
ar
y
Figure 2-2 Monthly average rainfall in the Gumara catchment from (2004-2007)
1600
R ain fall (m m )
1550
1500
1450
1400
1350
1300
1250
Wereta
A/Ber
D/Tabor
Station
Gumara
catchment
Figure 2-3 Average measured yearly rainfall at 3 stations and areal rainfall of Gumara catchment
(2004-2007).
Wereta Tmax.
D/Tabor Tmax.
Amed Ber Tmax
Temperature ( C)
40
35
30
25
20
Month-Year
Sep-06
May-06
Jan-06
Sep-05
May-05
Jan-05
Sep-04
May-04
Jan-04
Sep-03
May-03
Jan-03
15
Figure 2-4 Daily maximum temperature at three stations (2003-2007)
Temperature ( C)
25
Wereta Tmin.
D/Tabor Tmin.
Amed ber Tmin
20
15
10
5
Ju
l- 0
6
Ja
n06
l- 0
5
Ju
Ja
n05
l- 0
4
Ju
Ja
n04
l- 0
3
Ju
Ja
n03
Month-Year
Figure 2-5 Daily minimum temperatures at three stations (2003-2007)
Temperature ( C)
30
Wereta Tav.
D/Tabor Tav.
Amed Ber Tav.
25
20
15
Sep-06
May-06
Jan-06
Sep-05
May-05
Jan-05
Sep-04
May-04
Jan-04
Sep-03
May-03
Jan-03
10
Month-Year
Figure 2-6 Daily average temperatures for three stations (2003-2007)
2.2.
Topography
Gumara catchment is located in the eastern part of Lake Tana and it is characterized by highly rugged
and undulating topography on the upper part and gentle and mild slope on the lower part of the
7
catchment. The elevation ranges from 1780 to 3704 m.a.s.l. During field visit in September 2008, the
River in the upstream part of the catchment did not carry sediment and there were no sediment
depositions around the river banks. In the lower part of the catchment however the river carried high
amount of suspended sediments and sediment depositions were observed around the banks of the
river. This indicates that there is high soil erosion on the middle part of the catchment with
consequence affects the lower part by soil deposition and floods.
Considering both the topographical effect and the available water resources of the catchment the
Ministry of Ethiopian Water Resources (MEWR) planned to construct a medium scale dam in the
middle of the catchment. This dam is designed for the purpose of both irrigation and flood protection
downstream from the catchment. In the low and middle reaches of the river, especially in the extensive
alluvial plains bordering the lake, the river meanders on its way and flows slowly, causing serious
river channel deposit, high water table and overflow of riverbanks during the rainy season.
Consequently, major problems of flooding and water logging must be resolved in order to develop
irrigated agriculture in the area. To understand the topography of the catchment and extract some
features of the catchment like drainage lines, Digital Elevation Model was processed from SRTM 90m
resolution data using the DEM hydro-processing functions of ILWIS, as it is presented in Figure 2-7.
See Appendix-1 for the DEM processing procedure.
Figure 2-7 Digital Elevation Model in m.a.s.l of the study area (processed from SRTM data)
2.3.
Hydrology
Gumara is one of the major rivers which contributes significant amount of inflow to Lake Tana. For
this reason, the Ethiopian Ministry of Water Resources installed one gauging station downstream of
the river near the small town Gumara. This gauging station has a long-term daily observation series
starting from 1975. Based on the data from 2000 to 2006 records it has an average annual daily flow
of 35 m3/s. Figure 2.8 shows the characteristics of flow with rainfall of the catchment. While, Figure
2-9 shows the average annual daily flow of Gumara River from 2000-2006. The rainfall data before
2003 are not available for analysis.
300.00
Discharge
250.00
Rainfall
0
250
200.00
150.00
500
100.00
750
50.00
0.00
Rainfall (mm)
3 -1
Discharge (m s )
Mar-06
Mar-05
Mar-04
Mar-03
Mar-02
Mar-01
Mar-00
1000
Month
Figure 2-8 Monthly average daily flow of the Gumara River and areal average rainfall of the Gumara
catchment
3 -1
Discharge (m s )
50
40
30
20
10
0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Year
Figure 2-9 Annual average daily flow of the Gumara River
2.4.
Soil
A soil can be defined a three dimensional conceptual unit in which numerous physical, chemical and
biological processes takes place. These processes are driven by the changes in different kinds of
energy. A portion of solar energy is converted in to heat energy which results in an increase of soil
temperature in the soil surface during the day. The increase of soil temperature results in high
evaporation of water inside the soil particle. The seasonal soil moisture pattern in the study area
follows closely the rainfall patterns. In the dry season the soil moisture content is quite low and only
during the rainy season the soil moisture content increases. Soil classification is done to see the
effects of the soil properties in the analysis of spatio-temporal soil moisture variation of the
catchment.
There are various ways of soil classification a major distinction is between natural and technical
approaches.
Natural soil classifications group soils by some intrinsic property, behaviour, or genesis of the
soils themselves, without reference to use.
Technical soil classifications group soils by some properties or functions that relate directly to
a proposed use or group of uses.
The soils that covered the catchment are classified by five different classes of soils based on technical
soil classifications following the classification of FAO. Five of the major soil classifications in this
study area are Luvisols, Lithosols, Cambisols, Vertisols, and Nitosols in combination with four
diagnostic horizon modifiers: chromic, eutric, haplic, and lithic collected from MEWR. Based on the
FAO soil classification the catchment is dominantly covered by two soil groups the upper part of the
catchment covered by Luvisols and the lower part is covered by Nitosols. The percentage area
coverage of the three major soil groups are listed in Table 2-2 and their descriptions are listed below.
Table 2-2 soil properties of the three major soil groups
Major Soil Groups

Nitosols
Luvisols
Vertisols
Soil Texture
Silty clay to clay
Clay to silty clay
Clayay
Drainage conditions
well drained
moderately to well drained
poorly drained
% Cover
47.52
44.24
4.67
Soil group
Figure 2-10 Major soil groups according to the FAO classification

Luvisols are soils that have higher clay content in the sub soil than in the top soil as a result of
pedogenetic processes (especially clay migration) leading to an argic sub soil horizon. Luvisols have
high activity clays throughout the argic horizon and a high base saturation at certain depths. Luvisols
have a medium to high storage capacity for water and nutrients and are well aerated.
Nitosols are deep, well drained, and red, tropical soils with diffuse horizon boundaries and a surface
horizon with more than 30 percent clay and moderate to strong angular blocky structure elements that
easily fall apart in to characteristic shiny, polyhydric elements. The good workability of Nitosols,
their good internal drainage and fair water holding properties are complemented by chemical
(fertility) properties that compare favourably with those of most other tropical soils. Nitosols have
relatively high contents of weathering minerals, and surface soils may contain several percent of
organic matter, in particular under forest or tree crops.
10
Cambisols: - Soils with beginning horizon differentiation through changes in color, structure and/or
texture. Their parent materials are medium to fine textured materials derived from a wide range rock,
mostly in colluvial, alluvial or eolian deposits. They are found under the environment of level to
mountainous terrain; arctic to tropical climates; wide range of vegetation types.
Vertisols: - is a soil in which there is a high content of expansive clay known as montomorillonite
that forms deep cracks in drier seasons or years. Alternate shrinkage and swelling causes selfmulching, where the soil material consistently mixes itself, causing vertisols to have an extremely
deep A horizon and no B horizon. Their parent materials are sediments that are finely textured and
contain a high proportion of smetite clay, or products of rock weathering that have these
characteristics. The soils can be found in depression and level to undulating areas, mainly in tropical,
semi-arid to sub humid and Mediterranean climates with alternation of distinct wet and dry seasons.
Lithosols: - Most Lithosols are found in very step, mountainous region where erodible material is so
rapidly removed by erosion that a permanent covering of deep soil cannot establish itself. Such
conditions occur in almost all regions of the world where steep slopes are prevalent. All descriptions
are taken from FAO (2006).
2.5.
Land cover
Land cover classification is used for many applications like: conservation measure, biodiversity
assessment, water quality assessment, assessing land cover change and so on. There is no one ideal
classification of land use and land cover, and it is unlikely that one could ever be developed. There is
no logical reason to expect that one detailed inventory should be adequate for more than a short time,
since land use and land cover patterns change. Land cover classification has a great role for analyzing
soil moisture at a certain catchment because it directly affects the infiltration capacity of soil and the
amount of evapotranspiration takes place. During field visits land cover signatures and the
corresponding coordinates were taken for the purpose of land cover classification. Based on the
classification, majority of the study area is covered by crop lands while a few high lands of the study
area are covered by leafy forests, bush and shrubs as shown in Figure 2-11. The statistical coverage of
the classification is about 73.6% cropland, 13.2 % bushes and shrubs, 6.3% forest, 5% grass land,
1.8% bare land and about 0.1% is covered by water.
11
Figure 2-11 Land cover map of the Gumara catchment

Crop land1 is matured crops where as crop land2 is crops at growing stage.
12
3. Field work and materials used

The field work was conducted in September 2008 to collect both primary and secondary data. The
main activities that were done during the field work are:
Measuring soil moisture in the study area using both direct and indirect methods.
Measuring air and surface temperature, incoming and outgoing both short wave and long
wave radiation using a radiometer installed at a weather station and an infrared gun.
Collecting both hydrological and meteorological data from MEWR, Ethiopian Mapping
Agency (EMA) and other organizations.
3.1.
Soil moisture measurement
Soil moisture or soil water content is an expression of the mass or volume of water in the soil, while
the soil water potential is an expression of the soil water energy status. The relation between content
and potential is not universal, but depends on characteristics of the soil, such as soil density and soil
texture.
Soil-water content on the basis of mass is expressed in the gravimetric soil moisture content, g,
defined by:
g = M water
M soil
3.1
Where Mwater is the mass of water in the soil sample and Msoil is the mass of dry soil after oven dried
that is contained in the sample. The unit for Mwater and Msoil is g and for g is gg-1.
Volumetric soil water content of the soil is often more useful and it can be expressed as:
v = Vwater
Vsample
3.2
Where v is volumetric water content, Vwater is the volume of water in the soil sample and Vsample is the
total volume of (dry soil + air + water) in the sample. The unit of Vwater and Vsoil is cm3 and for v is
cm3cm-3. The relationship between gravimetric and volumetric water content is:
v = g G = g ( b / w )
3.3
Where G is specific gravity of soil, b is the dry soil bulk density (gcm-3) and w is soil water bulk
density (gcm-3).
Methods of soil moisture measurement on the field
There are two methods to measure soil moisture. These are direct or gravimetric method and indirect
methods. Both techniques were applied in the field.
Gravimetric or direct measurement of soil water content: This method is very straightforward.
Moist soil samples taken from the field are weighted, dry it to remove the water, and reweigh it. The
customary method of drying is to place the sample in an oven at 1050 C for 24 hours. This removes the
inter-particle water but not the water molecules trapped between clay layers (Gardner, 1986). Soil
water content can be computed using both in equation 3.1 and 3.2.
13
Indirect soil water content methods: There are various types of indirect soil water content
measurement methods. Radiological methods, soil-water dielectrics and remote sensing soil moisture
are some of the indirect methods of soil water content measurement methods. Details are found in
Appendix-3. During field work a Theta probe soil moisture sensor (ML2x) was used, which responds
to changes in the apparent dielectric constant of the medium. From the dielectric constant the
volumetric or gravimetric water content reads directly from the sensor. A factory calibration for
mineral soil was used to convert dielectric constant to volumetric soil moisture directly from the
sensor reading.
Before taking soil water content measurement in the field three important things were considered.
The sampling site was selected as much as possible at homogeneous land cover and also
relatively uniform slope: This is to minimize the variation of soil water content and to
minimize on the effect of topography.
The measurements were taken at the time of the satellite overpass of MODIS instrument for
both Terra and Aqua satellites. This helps to correlate ground measured soil moisture with
remote sensing data.
For each sampling site many measurements were taken to consider the spatial variability of
soil moisture at pixel level. The average of the measurements was taken to represent the 1km
pixel resolution of the MODIS image.
Considering the above a total of 49 sampling sites were visited on different land covers during the
field work. For some of the sampling sites, samples were taken for gravimetric method to calibrate the
Theta probe measurements. The sampling schemes and samples of measurement locations are shown
in Figure 3-1. A global positioning system (GPS) was used to obtain the coordinates of each sampling
site. The raw data are presented in Appendix-2.
Figure 3-1 Sampling schemes at different land covers and sites of in-situ measurements of soil
moisture:
14
The upper and the lower figures represent sites and location of measurements respectively and the
photos are taken during the field work when the measurements were taken at different land covers.
3.2.
Air and surface temperature measurements
Surface temperature measurements were recorded from measurements by a radiometer (CNRI, kipp
and zonen, Delft, the Netherlands) that was installed in the Wereta with two sensors during the field
work campaign, and using infrared gun measurements at different locations at different times. These
measurements are used for validating remote sensing measurements. The air temperature was also
measured from the weather station and Sonic Anemometer. It was applied to estimate the minimum
surface temperature for scaling land surface temperature and also for the analysis of temporal
variation of soil moisture. The air and surface temperatures from field measurements and from remote
sensing are shown below in Figure 3-2 and Figure 3-4. As can be seen below, most of the land surface
temperatures measured from the radiometer and derived from remote sensing match except for a
major shift on two points. This major shift is most likely due to the cloud effect on the remote sensing
image. Also, the air temperature measured by two different sensors which are about 10 m apart each
other corresponds very well as shown in Figure 3-2. The two sensors used for measuring air and
surface temperature are shown in Figure 3-3.
Temperature (K)
330
Measured LST
Calculated LST
320
MODIS LST product
310
300
290
280
Cloud effect
22
/0
9
22 /08
9
/9
/0 :00
8
:0
22
/0 10: 0
5
9
23 /08 5:0
0
2
/0
9/ :45
:0
24 08
2: 0
/0
2 5 9/0 40 :
/0 8 1 0 0
9/
:3
0:
26 08
00
1
/0
1
:2
9/
26 08 5:0
0
/0 10
:2
9/
5
0
27
:
8
/0 12 00
:3
9/
5
0
27 811 :00
/0
9 :3
27 /08 0:00
1:
/0
0
9
29 /08 0:0
0
/0
9/ 3:0
5
0
29
:
8
/0 11 00
:2
9/
08 5:
12 00
:3
5:
00
270
Date/month/year/time (UTC+3:00)
Figure 3-2 Surface temperatures from infrared gun and remote sensing
15
Figure 3-3 Weather station and radiometer installed during field work
35
25
Temperature ( C)
30
20
15
10
Air temp. (weather stn.)
5
Air temp. (Sonic Anemometer)

9/29/08 11:42
9/28/08 21:12
9/26/08 11:30
9/25/08 6:30
9/25/08 21:00
9/24/08 1:30
9/24/08 16:00
9/23/08 11:00
9/22/08 6:00
9/22/08 20:30
9/21/08 1:00
9/21/08 15:30
9/20/08 10:30
9/19/08 5:30
9/19/08 20:00
9/18/08 0:30
9/18/08 15:00
9/17/08 10:00
9/16/08 5:00
9/16/08 19:30
9/15/08 14:30
9/15/08 12:00
Date /Time (UTC+3:00)
Figure 3-4 Air temperature obtained from weather station and Sonic Anemometer.
3.3.
MODIS sensor
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiameter (MODIS) is a 36-band Spectro-radiometer

measuring visible and infrared radiation and obtaining data is being used to derive products ranging
from vegetation, land surface cover, and ocean chlorophyll fluorescence to cloud and aerosol
properties, fire occurrence, snow cover on the land, and sea ice cover on the oceans. The first MODIS
instrument was launched on board the Terra satellite in December 1999, and the second was launched
on Aqua in May 2002. Together the instruments image the Earth every 1 to 2 days. Terras orbit
around the Earth is timed so that it passes from north to south across the equator in the morning
(10:30), while Aqua passes south to north over the equator in the after noon (1:30). Figure 3-5shows
the MODIS instrument platforms of both Terra and Aqua.
16
Figure 3-5 Terra satellite-right and Aqua-left

Table 3-1 MODIS visible, NIR, thermal bands and potential applications
Primary Use
Band No. Band width

(m)
Spatial
Resolution at Nadir
Vegetation
index
1
2
0.620 - 0.670
0.841 - 0.876
250 m
Land/Cloud
Properties
3
4
5
6
7
0.459 - 0.479
0.545 - 0.565
1.230 - 1.250
1.628 - 1.652
2.105 - 2.155
500 m
Atmospheric
Water Vapor
17
18
19
0.890 - 0.920
0.931 - 0.941
0.915 - 0.965
1000m
Surface
Temperature
31
32
10.780 - 11.280
11.770 - 12.270
3.4.
Acquiring of MODIS image
Table 3-2 shows the general description of MODIS level 1data products, which are freely available
from the MODIS Adaptive Processing System (MODAPS) through Atmosphere Archive and
Distribution System (LAADS) at http://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/. The images dated from Sept.18,
2008 to Sep.29, 2008 with latitude of 11.250-12.250 and longitude of 37.250-38.50 was acquired from
the above website. MODIS/Terra is used for analyzing images in this study because the images
acquired from Terra satellite is relatively less cloud affected than Aqua but the image from the
MODIS Aqua satellite is also processed to take information of LST for pixels where the soil moisture
measurement was taken at its overpass time.
17
Table 3-2 General descriptions of MODIS level 1 raw data
MODIS/Terra
data products
MOD021KM
MODIS/Aqua
data products
MYD021KM
MOD02QKM
MYD02QKM
MOD02HKM
MYD02HKM
MOD03
MYD03
Data Product Description

This level 1B collection contains calibrated
and geolocated radiances at-aperture for all
36 MODIS spectral bands at 1km resolution.
and geolocated radiances at-aperture for
MODIS spectral bands 1 through 7 at 500 m
resolution.
and geolocated radiances at-aperture for
MODIS spectral bands 1 and 2 at 250 m
resolution.
Geolocation collection contains geodetic
latitude and longitude, surface height above
geoid, solar zenith and azimuth angles,
satellite zenith and azimuth angles, a
land/sea mask for each 1km sample.
The advantages of using MODIS instrument over the other instruments for this research are:
The swath width is 2330km and one image covers the entire study area.
It passes over study area in the late morning close to mid day and in the afternoon.
Therefore temperature can be retrieved twice a day and in principle it is ideal for
monitoring of rapidly varying soil moisture.
Because of the morning over pass, it is expected that cloud free images can be collected.
The images are cost effective, can be downloaded freely from the MODIS archives.
It has good spectral resolution, 36 bands.
The spatial resolutions are satisfactory for soil moisture studies, 250m, 500m, and 1000m
resolution.
Software or tools are available to pre-process the images.
Accurate calibration in multiple thermal infrared bands has been designed for retrievals
of SST, LST and atmospheric properties.
18
4. Literature review about remote sensing and

triangle method for soil moisture
4.1.
Remote sensing of soil moisture
Remote sensing of soil moisture can be accomplished to some degree or other by all regions of the
electromagnetic spectrum. Successful measurement of soil moisture by remote sensing techniques
depends on the type of reflected or emitted radiation (Table 4-1).
Table 4-1 Summary of remote sensing techniques for measuring soil moisture (Engman and Gurney, 1991)
Wave length
region
Property observed
Advantages
Disadvantages
Gamma
radiation
Natural gamma radiation
High spatial
resolution
Atmosphere and
presence of water in
the soil attenuates the
gamma radiation
Reflected solar
Albedo; index of
reflection
Data available
No unique relationship
between spectral
reflectance and soil
moisture; thin surface
layer only; cloud
interference
Thermal
infrared
Surface temperature
(measured diurnal range
of surface temperature or
crop canopy temperature
Bare soil only; cloud

interference; surface
topography and local
meteorological
conditions can cause
noise; surface layer
only (2 -4cm)
Passive
microwave
Brightness
temperature(microwave
emission);dielectric
constant; soil temperature
High spatial
resolution, large
swath; relationship
between
temperature and
soil water pressure
is independent of
soil type.
All weather;
penetrates some
vegetation; large
area coverage
Active
microwave
Backscatter coefficient;
dielectric constant
All weather; high

resolution
Limited spatial
resolution; soil
temperature; surface
roughness; vegetation;
interference from
communications
Surface roughness;
vegetation; topography;
limited swath width
19
4.1.1.
Gamma radiation techniques
Airborne soil moisture measurement by gamma radiation is based on detecting the difference between
the natural terrestrial gamma radiation flux for wet and dry soils. This technique needs calibration
flight lies to determine the back ground gamma count rate, C0, and background soil moisture, M0. The
current soil moisture, M can be calculated according to:
C
M =
Co
(100 + 1.1Mo) 100

1.11
4.1
Where C is the measured gamma count rate, MO is the background soil moisture unit and CO is the
background gamma count rate. This approach is limited to aircraft flying at an altitude of only 100200 m above the earths surface. Atmosphere and presence of water in the soil attenuates the gamma
radiation.
4.1.2.
Reflected solar techniques
Reflected solar radiation is not a particularly viable technique for measuring soil moisture because
there are too many noise elements that confuse the interpretation of the data. Although wet soil will
generally have a lower albedo than dry soil (Crist and Cicone, 1984), and this difference can be
measured theoretically, confusion factors such as organic matter, roughness, texture, incidence angle,
colour, plant cover and the fact that it is a transient phenomenon all make this approach impractical
(Jackson et al. 1978). However, land surface parameter which has a relation with soil moisture like
NDVI can be detected with this technique.
4.1.3.
Thermal technique
Thermal infrared measurements have been successfully used to measure the surface few centimetres
of soil moisture. However, atmospheric effect and vegetation cover make the thermal technique
limited to their application for soil moisture estimation especially when there is thin cirrus of clouds
in the atmosphere and vegetation on the surface. Idso et al. (1975) found that the volumetric moisture
content for soil layers between 2 and 4 cm thick was linearly related to the amplitude of diurnal soil
temperature for specific soil types. But this relation can not be effectively applied to surfaces with
vegetation cover and with different soil types.
After meteorological inputs to the soil surface have been accounted for, surface temperature is
primarily dependent on the thermal inertia of the soil. The thermal inertia, in turn, is dependent on
both the thermal conductivity and the heat capacity which increases with soil moisture according to
the relationship (Price, 1982).
( D)
DTs = Ts (PM ) Ts ( AM ) = f 1
4.2
Where DTs is the diurnal temperature difference between the afternoon surface temperature (Ts
(PM)) and the early morning temperature (Ts (AM)), and D is the diurnal thermal inertia given by
20
D = c k
4.3
Where corresponds to the day length, c is the volumetric heat capacity (Jm-1k-1) and k is the thermal
conductivity (W m-1 k-1). The thermal inertia D (J m-2 k-1 s1/2) describes the ability of the soil to resist
temperature change. By measuring the amplitude of diurnal temperature change we can develop a
relationship between temperature change and soil moisture. However, the relationship between
diurnal temperature and soil moisture depends upon soil type and is largely limited to bare soil
conditions.
4.1.4.
Microwave techniques
Microwave techniques for measuring soil moisture include both passive and active microwave
approaches with each having distinct advantages. The theoretical basis for measuring soil moisture by
microwave techniques is based on the large contrast between the dielectric properties of water and dry
soil. The large dielectric constant for water is the result of water molecules alignment of the electric
dipole in response to an applied electromagnetic field. The dielectric constant of water at around 20 C
is approximately 80 compared with that of dry soils which is the order of 3 to 5. Thus, as the soil
moisture increases, the dielectric constant increase to a value of 20 or more (Schmugge, 1983). For
passive microwave remote sensing, this change in dielectric constant would result in a decrease of
emissivity from about 0.95 to 0.6 or less.
For passive microwave remote sensing of soil moisture, a radiometer measures the intensity of
emission from the soil surface. This emission is proportional to the product of the surface temperature
and surface emissivity which is commonly referred to as the microwave brightness temperature (TB),
and can be expressed as follows (Engman and Gurney, 1991):
TB = t (H ) rTsky + (1 r )Tsoil + Tatm
4.4
Where t (H) is the atmospheric transmission, r is the surface reflectivity, and Tsky, Tsoil and Tatm are the
temperature for the sky, soil and atmosphere, in K respectively. At longer microwave (greater than
about 5cm), which are better for measuring soil moisture, the atmospheric effects can be neglected
and the above equation can be simplified to:
TB = (1 r )Tsoil = Tsoil
4.5
Where = 1-r is the emissivity. Because the measured brightness temperature and the emissivity are
dependent on soil texture, surface roughness and any vegetation present, actual soil moisture is
usually related to TB empirically with ground. In this equation, the reflectance r is determined from the
Fresnel equations for an electromagnetic wave at a smooth boundary. These can be written for the
horizontally and vertically polarized radiation as follows:
rH =
rV =
K cos K sin 2
K cos + K sin 2
cos K sin 2
cos + K sin 2
4.6
4.7
21
Where the subscripts H and V refer to the horizontal and vertical polarizations respectively, is the
angle of incidence and K is dielectric constant. Finally, the soil moisture content can be obtained from
K by using their relationship.
For the active microwave approach, soil moisture can be determined from the relation of the measured
radar back scatter composed of back scatter from vegetation layer and from soil surface. This radar
back scatter is obviously attenuated by vegetation canopy. The relation of measured radar back scatter
and soil moisture can be mathematically described as follows:
St = Sv + S s / L
4.8
Where St is measured backscatter, Sv is backscatter from vegetation, Ss is back scatter from soil and L
is attenuation caused by vegetation canopy.
The soil back scatter from equation 4.8 can be directly related to volumetric soil moisture as follows:
S s = RM v
4.9
Where R is surface roughness term, is soil moisture sensitivity term and Mv is volumetric soil
moisture.
Since the early 70s there has been extensive research studying microwave approaches for remote
sensing of soil moisture. The basic conclusion of this research is that it is indeed possible to determine
the moisture content of the surface layer of the soil of thickness about equal to a of a wave length
thick, i.e., about a 0-5 cm layer using a 21 cm wave length (Schmugge et al., 2002).
Microwave remote sensing has the potential to provide a direct measure of soil moisture. It also has
the advantage of all-weather observations and penetration in to the vegetation canopy for soil moisture
sensing. However, there are many reasons why microwave techniques have not been applied for
estimation of soil moisture at an operational level. First, the spatial resolution of passive microwave
sensors from space is poor; second, the current satellite channels do not provide adequate soil
moisture sensitivity for majority of vegetation covers (i.e NDVI > 0.4); and third, a priori information
(like vegetation optical depth and root mean square height of the soil surface is needed for
determining reflectivity) required in existing soil moisture estimation algorithms, which cannot be
obtained globally after (Chauhan et al., 2003).
Active microwave remote sensing of soil moisture faces the same potential and the same limitations as
the passive microwave. Radar active microwave sensor has the capability to measure soil moisture at
a fine resolution but two main reasons limit the applicability. First due to the narrow swath, they
operate at low temporal frequency minimum revisit time is 35 days. Secondly, the back scattering
coefficient is strongly affected by other factors than the soil moisture, such as soil roughness,
vegetation water content and geometrical characteristics of the vegetation. These effects are incidence
angle, polarization and frequency dependent. Unlike radar active microwave, it is possible to retrieve
soil moisture content by using ERS wind scatterometer globally at a temporal resolution of 3-4 days
on average (Wen and Su, 2003). However, the spatial resolution and effects of soil roughness and
vegetation are still limitations of the approach for applicability.
22
4.2.
4.2.1.
Soil moisture quantification using the triangle method

Description of triangle method
Soil moisture coupling to land surface-interactions has been used in the past to quantify soil moisture
signatures. NDVI and soil temperature are proven indicators of the vegetative and thermal potential of
the land surface. However, the vegetation and soil temperature have a complicated dependence on soil
moisture. Careful analysis based on the available data by Carlson et al. (1994) and Gillies et al.
(1997) show that there can be a unique relationship among soil moisture, NDVI, and soil temperature
for a given region after (Chauhan et al., 2003).
The method used to mapping land surface moisture from NDVI and surface temperature is called
Triangle method. If a sufficiently large number of pixels are present and when cloud and surface
water and outliers are removed, the shape of the pixel envelope in the feature space plot between
NDVI and land surface temperature resembles a triangle. Figure 4-1 represents a schematic
description of the relationship of soil moisture, NDVI and LST some times referred to as Universal
triangle.
From the triangle three important properties can be observed in the context of the relations between
NDVI, LST and soil moisture. The first observation is soil moisture variation from the right to the left
side of the triangle. The right side of the triangle has low soil moisture and left side of the triangle has
high soil moisture. The second observation is the slope towards the left, in this case surface
temperature decreases as the NDVI increases. This negative relation shows that sunlit vegetation is
generally cooler than bare soil. The third and the most important observation is on the apex of the
triangle. In the apex of the triangle the value of NDVI is higher but the corresponding value of surface
temperature is low with small variation. The small change of surface temperature with high NDVI
indicates the wetness of the soil moisture in the vegetation. From this as we will postulate, the
vegetation temperature do not vary in space, so variations in temperature in the triangle reflect only
the soil surface dryness or wetness (Carlson, 2007). A central assumption here is that, given a large
number of pixels reflecting a full range of soil surface wetness and fractional vegetation cover, sharp
boundaries in the data reflect the real limit: i.e., bare soil, 100 percent vegetation cover, and lower and
upper limits of the surface soil water content. The abscissa and the ordinate are appropriately scaled
versions of temperature and NDVI respectively such that:
Figure 4-1 Universal triangle: schematic relationship between soil moisture, temperature and NDVI ,
source (Chauhan et al., 2003).
23
T* =
T To
Ts To
NDVI * =
4.10
NDVI NDVIo
NDVIs NDVIo
4.11
Where, T and NDVI are observed soil temperature and NDVI respectively, and the subscripts o and s
stand for minimum and maximum values of the pixels inside the triangle.
Carlson et al. (1994) found that the relationship between soil moisture M, NDVI*, and T* can be
expressed through a regression formula such as:
M =
i =n j =n
aijNDVI
* (i )
T*
( j)
4.12
i =0 j = 0
The scaling of NDVI and LST reduces the sensitivity of NDVI and LST to atmospheric correction and
calibration issues, helps to isolate cloud and water pixels which tend to lie outside the triangle, and
allows comparison of pixel data from different days and seasons within the same framework.
Chauhan et al. (2003) argued that a single polynomial such as the one above can represent a wide
range of surface climate conditions and land surface types but less accurate. The second or third order
polynomial gives a reasonable representation of the data with good accuracy.
4.2.2.
Previous studies of soil moisture using the triangle method
Chauhan et al. (2003) have evaluated the triangle method approach for the estimation of soil moisture
at high resolution using satellite microwave and optical/infrared data. This approach can be applied to
integrate data acquired by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Sensor Suit (VIIRS) and a Conical
Scanning Microwave Imager/Sounder (CMIS), planned for launch in the 2009-2010 time frames
under National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).
Chauhan et al. (2003) applied a two step approach to obtain operational, reasonably accurate, high
resolution soil moisture by linking microwave derived soil moisture with optical/IR parameters. First,
the soil moisture was retrieved at low resolution from microwave data. The second step involves
relating microwave-derived soil moisture to NDVI, LST and albedo through regression following
equation 4.12. These regression relations, in conjunction with high resolution NDVI, LST and albedo
are then regressed backward to obtain soil moisture at high resolution. An error budget analysis
performed on the estimation procedure showed that the RMSE in the estimation of soil moisture is of
the order of 5%. Predicted soil moisture results at high resolution agree reasonably well with the low
resolution estimates in both magnitude and spatio-temporal patterns.
Both the triangle method and a Soil Vegetation Atmosphere Transfer (SVAT) model are also applied
by Quattrochi and Luvall (2004) to retrieve surface soil moisture as an index to assess the prevalence
of certain diseases such as malaria and filariasis. The surface soil moisture was used as an index of
24
mosquito presence that carries the parasite and need standing water for breeding. A SVAT model was
applied to model surface soil moisture from the measured radiant surface temperature. The triangle
method is applied to link the modelled soil moisture with satellite derived scaled NDVI and scaled
LST to retrieve soil moisture map.
Carlson (2007) also applied the triangle method and a SVAT model for estimation of evaporative
fraction and soil moisture from measured surface parameters of scaled LST and vegetation fraction
(Fr). The 3rd order polynomial relation ( M 0 , EF ) =
a
i = 0 i =0
ij
T *i Fr j was proposed and the obtained
multiple correlation R2 for both parameters are close to 1.0 and RMSE between the polynomial values
and raw model output is less than 2 percent. According to Carlson (2007) the triangle method is
insensitive to initial atmospheric and surface conditions, net radiation and atmospheric correction, yet
can yield accuracies comparable to other methods.
Recently the triangle method was applied by Wang et al. (2007) for soil moisture estimation at 1 km
resolution in eastern China Shandong province, by relating the ground observed soil moisture at point
scale with the satellite derived surface parameters NDVI and LST. They applied a 2nd order
polynomial relation algorithm to estimate soil moisture. For a total of 93 ground stations with valid
data, the results obtained was a relative error approaches 0, and the standard errors were less than
0.05; the coefficient of determination for 55 stations were greater than 0.8, 71 stations greater than 0.7
and 82 stations were greater than 0.6.
25
26
5. Methodology
5.1.
General approach of the triangle method
Triangle method follows four work phases and eight major processing steps to obtain operational,
reasonably accurate, high-resolution soil moisture by linking ground measured soil moisture with
optical/IR parameters as follows. Summary of the general approach of the triangle method is listed in
Table 5-1 and the general flow diagram of the method is shown in Figure 5-1.
Table 5-1 Phases and schematic processing steps for the triangle method from remote sensing
Phase
no.
One
Phase work
Processing step
Description
Field work
Measure soil
moisture in the field
Soil moisture can be measured using both

direct and indirect method
Two
Remote sensing
Calculate NDVI
NDVI can be calculated using equation 5.2

below.
LST can be retrieved either from MODIS
product or using split window technique.
Retrieve LST
Plot NDVI and LST
Calculate NDVI* or
Fr and T*
Three
Four
Developing
regression
Mapping of soil
moisture
Graphic visualization of the NDVI/LST

triangle
Scaled NDVI and LST between its bare soil
and dense vegetated values.
Set up polynomial
equations of N* and
T* with ground
measured soil
moisture
The set up can be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order

polynomial function of equation 3.13
Determine the
coefficients of the
polynomial equation
by fine tuning the
equation
Coefficients can be calibrated using least

square method
Spatially map soil

moisture
Using GIS packages and the equations

derived by coupling remote sensing with
ground measurement soil moisture
i =n j =n
(i )
M = aijNDVI * T *
( j)
i =0 j =0
Phase one
Field work: In this phase 49 sampling points were measured using both direct and indirect methods
of soil moisture measurement techniques as described in section 3.1 during field campaign.
27
Phase two
Remote sensing: The second phase includes retrieving both NDVI and LST at 1km resolution from
MODIS sensor, creating LST vs NDVI feature space and computing scaled NDVI* and T*.
Phase three
Developing regression relation: In case of relating soil moisture measured at the field with remote
sensing scaled NDVI and scaled LST, a system of equation 4.12 was set up using ground observed
soil moisture and remote sensing scaled NDVI and LST for all pixels matching the site of each ground
stations. The coefficients of the polynomial relations are determined using least square method by
calibrating the algorithm.
Phase four
Mapping soil moisture: After calibrating and validating of the developed algorithm in phase three,
soil moisture can be estimated or mapped from the retrieved NDVI and LST at 1km resolution of the
MODIS data. The regression relations, in conjunction with high-resolution NDVI and LST are then
regressed backward, to obtain soil moisture at high resolution. The summary of phases and processing
steps are found in Table 5-1.
In this study soil moisture simulation from remote sensing by triangle method was tested using 2nd and
3rd order polynomial function of LST with NDVI and also 3rd order polynomial function of LST with
fractional vegetation. Gillies et al.(1997) and Quattrochi and Luvall (2004) used fractional vegetation
(Fr) instead of NDVI. Fr is established from a transform between NDVI and Fr following equation 5.4.
The major processing steps mentioned in Table 5-1 that was applied to estimate surface soil moisture
using triangle method are described in detail as follows:
Retrieving NDVI and LST: - These two parameters are retrieved from MODIS image using the
method described under remote sensing section 5.2 for all field days (i.e. Sep.18, 2008 - Sep.29, 2008).
Plotting NDVI and LST: - This can be done by crossing the raster images of the retrieved LST to the
retrieved NDVI pixel by pixel base for all images using ILWIS. From this cross, a table can be formed
which contains LST and NDVI in separate columns. The table formed by crossing LST and NDVI is
exported to spreadsheet and then after, the plots between the two parameters can be produced.
Calculate N*, Fr and T*:- In this step the main task was to determine NDVImax, NDVImin, Tmax and
Tmin from the scatter plots formed above. In principle NDVImin is the value of the pixels that resembles
for bare soil while NDVImax is the value of pixels covered by vegetation. However, for LST the reverse
is true (i.e. Tmax is for bare soil and Tmin is for vegetation). Generally, the maximum and minimum
values for both NDVI and LST can be related simply by observing the scatter plots between the two
parameters as indicated in Figure 6-8. Corrupted and water pixels in the scatter plot are removed.
Scaled LST (T*) and scaled NDVI (N*) are obtained by applying equation 4.10 and 4.11 respectively
after determining the corresponding maximum and minimum values from the scatter plots. Fractional
vegetation cover (Fr) is obtained using equation 5.4 by simply squaring the scaled NDVI (N*).
Setup polynomial relations of ground observed soil moisture with N* or Fr and T*:- Before
setting the polynomial relation, soil moisture measured in the field is converted into a point map by
28
using the corresponding coordinate information collected in the field using ILWIS software. Once the
point map is produced the information of soil moisture, NDVI and LST at the pixel level taken from
the images using pixel information tools in ILWIS by overlying the point map of soil moisture and
raster maps of NDVI and LST.
The polynomial relation of equation 4.12 is constructed/ modelled in a spreadsheet based on the point
information of ground measured soil moisture, NDVI and LST. The coefficients of equation 4.12 are
determined by fine tuning of the relations using least square method by minimizing the sum of the
square errors between the measured and simulated soil moisture and by changing the values of the
coefficients using solver tools in excel. The spread sheets of the three polynomial equations are found
on Appendix-5, Appendix-6 and Appendix-7.
Calibration and Validation of the algorithms: Calibration stands for fine-tuning of the coefficients
to improve the performance of the algorithm. In order to do calibration and validation, the measured
soil moisture is grouped into two data set one for calibration and the other dataset for validation. The
data set from Sep.18, 2008 to Sep.26, 2008 a total of 35 measured points are used for calibration and
the data set of Sep.27, 2008 and Sep.29, 2008 a total of 14 points are used for validation. To define nth
order of polynomial relation the coefficients will be calibrated by comparing the simulated soil
moisture with the observed soil moisture until the simulated shows acceptable level of agreement. This
level of agreement is evaluated by objective functions that measure the level of agreement between the
observed soil moisture and the simulated soil moisture.
Two different objective functions are considered: the root mean square error and coefficient of
determination R2. Root mean square error is a frequently used measure of the differences between
values predicted by the algorithms and the actually observed from the ground. It is one of many ways to
quantify the amount by which an estimator differs from the true value of the quantity being estimated.
RMSE =
i= N
i =1
( X o X s )2
N
5.1
Where RMSE is root mean square error, Xo is observed soil moisture, Xs is simulated soil moisture and
N is the number of samples.
To validate the algorithm (model), the algorithm coefficients have to be tested against on independent
set of field conditions; in this study validation data of Sep.27, 2008 and Sep.29, 2008 is selected for
validation. If the calibrated algorithm set of coefficients fails on the validation period the algorithm is
regarded as unreliable and so not usable.
Spatial map of soil moisture: - Soil moisture can be mapped both spatially and temporally using the
algorithms developed with the relations of observed soil moisture and remote sensing NDVI and LST
by using different GIS package software.
29
Phase one
Phase two
Phase three
Legend
Phase four
Figure 5-1 Flow diagram of the general procedure for soil moisture estimation from remote sensing
using triangle method
5.2.
Remote sensing
Before doing regression analysis of equation 4.12 to obtain soil moisture at high resolution, land
surface temperature and NDVI from remote sensing should be retrieved accurately. The extensive
requirement of temperature information on a large scale for environmental studies and management
activities of the earths sources has made the remote sensing of Land surface temperature (LST) an
important issue in recent decades. However, retrieving land surface temperature from thermal bands
needs a series of steps. Methods to correct radiometric surface temperature for atmospheric
interference are classified in to three categories:
Direct methods or single infrared channel method: that use radiation transfer models together
with atmospheric radio soundings, satellite vertical sounder and climatological data.
30
Indirect methods that are based on split window or in situ temperature observations (Parodi,
2002).
A new physics based day/night MODIS LST method: this is designed to take advantage of the
unique capability of the MODIS instrument.
Studies based on direct methods suffer from data deficiency and reliability that comes from the sparse
existing radio sound station network. The second method makes corrections for the atmospheric and
surface emissivity effects with surface emissivity as input based on the differential absorption in split
window. The third method uses day/night pairs of TIR data in seven MODIS bands for simultaneously
retrieving surface temperatures and band averaged emissivities without knowing atmospheric
temperature and water vapour profiles to high accuracy. For this study both second and third methods
i.e. split window and day/night MODIS LST methods are compared with the ground measured surface
temperatures. LST retrieved by applying split window technique is based on the available thermal
bands of the sensor channel 31 and channel 32 for MODIS sensor, emissivity and transmissivity of
every pixel of the image whereas an alternative LST is retrieved using the third method directly taken
from MODIS level3 LST product from MODIS data base.
5.2.1.
NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index)
To retrieve NDVI from MODIS sensors the following procedures are used.
NDVI =
Ch 2 Sur Ch1Sur
Ch 2 Sur + Ch1Sur
5.2
Where, Ch1Sur and Ch2Sur are atmospherically corrected ground reflectance in Ch1 and Ch2
respectively. To retrieve NDVI from MODIS image pre-processing such as geometric, radiometric
and atmospheric corrections are a prerequisite for image analysis. Figure 5-2 shows the steps that are
applied to retrieve NDVI from MODIS raw images for all days in which the images are analyzed for
soil moisture estimation.
Step I File format conversion

The calibrated raw images of MOD021KM and MYD021KM from MODIS data are acquired in
Hierarchical Data Format (HDF). HDF is the standard data storage format selected by the Earth
Observing System Data and Information System. It is developed and maintained by the National
Centre for Supper Computing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(http://nsca.uiuc.edu).
Generally, HDF is designed to allow sharing of self describing files across heterogeneous platforms.
However, the HDF file format is not supported by ILWIS software. Therefore, the first step for preprocessing images is converting HDF file in to GeoTIFF file that can be read by ILWIS software and
can be processed by using MODIS swath tool software. Since the swath width (2030x2030) km of
MODIS image is too large to process; image sub-setting to the area of interest is done simultaneously
with file conversion using MODIS swath tool software (level 1B image is swath data type). Spatial
subset can be done with latitude of 11.250 - 12.250 and longitude of 37.250 - 38.50 and the output pixel
size is 0.010 or 1000m. During file format conversion there are 85 different Science Data Sets (SDS)
31
in the MODIS level 1B Earth view products. From these 85 available SDS only EV_250_Aggr
1KM_RefSB band1 and band2 are required for NDVI and EV_1KM_Emissive of band 31 and band
32 are required for LST analysis.
MOD03 geolocation HDF files (surface height above geoids, solar zenith and azimuth angles, and
satellite zenith and azimuth angles) can also be converted in to GeoTIFF file format in the same way
as MODIS level 1B data products.
The converted GeoTIFF file can be imported to ILWIS software for further processing and analyzing
of images. Each band is imported separately using import options of ILWIS using file menu option
under the main menu by using Use GDAL import format options.
Step II Conversion of raw DN value to reflectance value

Level 1B generates two calibrated data products for the Reflective Solar Bands (RSBs): the
reflectance and the Earth-exiting radiance. Writing these two products in floating-point format to the
level 1B Earth view product files would make the file sizes prohibitively large. Instead, level 1B
writes a 16-bit scaled integer representation of the calibrated digital signals measured by the MODIS,
from which the reflectances and radiances can be calculated from two pairs of scale and offset terms
written as attributes to the reflective band SDSs. These two pairs are derived from the calibration
parameters that are input to level 1B as look up tables.
Level 1B corrects the raw digital signals measured at the Reflective Band Detectors, DN, for all
known instrumental effects , to produce corrected digital signals, dn*. Corrections are applied for the
following effects:
Electronic offsets
Non-linearities in the analogue to digital converters
Angular variations of the scan mirror reflectance
Variations in gain caused by variations in the instrument and focal plane temperatures
Level 1B then adjusts the values of dn* for the effect of variations in calibration parameters from
detector to detector within each band so that one pair of calibration terms applies to every detector in
each band. The values of dn* adjusted in this way, called SI, are scaled to the 15-bits of the 16-bit
integer representation in the reflectance solar bands SDSs.
The scaled integer values, SI, can be converted to reflectance values from the reflectance bands
according to MODIS Calibration Support Teams (MCSTs) linear calibration algorithm:
cos() = reflectance_scales(S I reflectance_offsets)
5.3
Where cos() is reflectance values, reflectance_scales and reflectance_offsets are obtained from the
meta data of level 1B product files and it can be read using HDF viewer software.
Step III Atmospheric correction

Atmospheric correction methods can be grouped according to the final product required by the
application. Generally the methods are grouped into two: relative and absolute atmospheric methods.
Relative atmospheric methods are simple empirical methods that include invariant object, histogram
matching, and dark object.
32
Absolute atmospheric correction methods require a description of the components in the atmospheric
profile. The output of these methods is an image that matches the reflectance of the ground pixels
with a maximum estimated error of 10%, if atmospheric profile is adequate enough (Kerle et al.,
2004). Some typical examples of radiative transfer models used for absolute atmospheric correction
are: LOWTRAN, MODTRAN,6s, 5s and SMAC (Simplified Method for Atmospheric Correction)
which all are described in (Kerle et al., 2004).
Absolute methods produce accurate results but they need the acquisition of atmospheric parameters
like aerosol properties, ozone and water vapour content. Especially LOWTRAN and MODTRAN
methods require large effort to make atmospheric corrections. The Simplified Method for
Atmospheric Corrections (SMAC) is a faster technique especially when the coefficient files for
sensors are available and also when viewing and solar angles are less than 500 and 600 respectively.
According to Rahman and Dedieu (1994) SMAC is capable of calculating atmospheric parameters for
several satellite spectral bands with results that are closely similar to 5s. Since, the viewing and solar
angles of the acquired images for this study are less than 500 and 600 respectively and the aerosol
optical depths are less than 0.8 at 550nm as shown in Table 5-2, SMAC is applied for the reflectance
bands for this study.
MOD08_D3 MODIS atmospheric products are used for retrieving optical thickness, water vapour
content and total ozone for SMAC atmospheric correction. This is a level-3 MODIS gridded
atmosphere daily global joint product. It contains daily 1x1 degree grid average values of atmospheric
parameters related to atmospheric aerosol particle properties, total ozone burden, atmospheric water
vapour etc.
Table 5-2 MODIS/Terra solar and sensor zenith angle and atmospheric parameters
Image
Acquisition
Date
18-09-08
19-09-08
20-09-08
22-09-08
23-09-08
24-09-08
25-09-08
27-09-08
29-09-08
Solar zenith
angle (deg.)
Sensor zenith
angle (deg.)
18.11
30.48
20.94
23.82
15.69
26.72
18.21
20.85
23.58
35.47
58.29
10.01
19.09
58.73
41.95
45.00
23.77
4.96
Optical
depth
(nm)
0.41
0.29
0.30
0.53
0.34
0.57
0.40
0.23
0.30
Total ozone
content (atm.cm)
0.27
0.26
0.27
0.27
0.27
0.28
0.27
0.28
0.27
Water
vapour
(gcm-2)
2.37
2.24
2.27
2.26
1.60
2.34
2.31
2.02
1.68
Step IV Normalized Difference Vegetations Index (NDVI) computation

NDVI is one of the most widely used vegetation indices to monitor the spatial and temporal
distribution of vegetation presented in certain area. It is derived from remotely sensed near infrared
and red bands (see equation 5.2) due to the high spectral reflectance of vegetation in the near infrared
bands. The value ranges from -1.0 to 1.0, where negative values are water pixels and positive values
33
are land surface pixels. The typical range for land surface is 0.1 for bare soil and 0.9 for dense
vegetation.
Determination of fractional vegetation cover (Fr):- Fractional vegetation cover is an important

parameter that have key role in the energy exchanges at the land surface. It measures how much the
land surface is covered by vegetation. Remote sensing provides a seemingly obvious data source for
quantifying Fr over large areas, and several methods have been developed in the past few decades.
Most of the developed methods are using NDVI to determine Fr. For this study the method developed
by Gillies et al (1997) is used.
(NDVI NDVI min )
Fr =
( NDVI max NDVI min )
5.4
Where Fr is fractional Vegetation cover, NDVImax is maximum NDVI and NDVImin is minimum NDVI
of the image. Unlike the case for the NDVI, this scaling reduces but does not eliminate calibration and
correction issues of images.
Legend
Figure 5-2 General procedures to retrieve NDVI from MODIS
34
5.2.2.
Land Surface Temperature computation using split window techniques
The derivation of the algorithm for LST retrieval is based on thermal radiance of the ground and its
transfer from the ground through the atmosphere to the remote sensor. Generally speaking, the ground
is not a black body thus ground emissivity has to be considered for computing the thermal radiance
emitted by the ground and also the atmosphere has important effects on the received radiance at
remote sensor level. The method developed by Mao et al. (2005) is selected for this study to retrieve
LST from MODIS because it considers both the effect of emissivity and atmospheric effect and also it
is relatively simplified to apply. Moreover, it is possible to get transmittance from retrieval water
content by near-infrared (NIR) bands of MODIS and make the computation of transmittance accurate
for every pixel using this method without any atmospheric transfer model.
General approach of the algorithm

The general approach of the algorithm can be described as shown in Figure 5-3. According to the
character of MODIS data, the proposed method estimates the parameters (transmittance and
emissivity) at pixel level. Atmospheric transmittance is an essential parameter for the accurate
retrieval of LST, which influences the accuracy of the retrieval of LST. The knowledge of
temperature and humidity profiles is needed in atmospheric transmittance calculation. These profiles
can be estimated by use of radiosonde data.
However, radiosonde measurements are performed only at upper atmosphere stations (radiosonde
stations) and not at meteorological ground stations. Studies based on these data usually suffer from
data deficiency and reliability that comes from the sparse density of radiosonde stations network. By
the relation between NIR band sensitivity and the water content of the atmosphere, it is possible to
retrieve transmittance of atmosphere from the MODIS image. Further more estimates the
transmittance of every pixel of the image by the water content of the atmosphere, which overcomes
the problem of only one transmittance in an image in many split window algorithms. The cloud pixels
which have much lower temperatures than the land surfaces and much higher reflectance than the land
surfaces are masked using cloud mask product of MODIS before using split window methods.
MODIS reflectance bands (band1, band2 and band5) are acquired and pre-processed using the steps
mentioned under section 5.2.1 to compute NDVI. NIR bands from MOD021KM (band17, 18 and 19)
are used to retrieve water content and transmittance of the atmosphere while thermal bands (band 31
and 32) are used to retrieve LST by applying a split window technique.
35
Legend
Figure 5-3 Methodology to retrieve land surface temperature (modified after Mao et al., 2005)
The radiance transfer equation is the base of thermal remote sensing and LST retrieval where Planck
function is the essential part of the radiance transfer equation. Because of the complexity of the
Planck function, a simplification of Planck function is the precondition of LST retrieval.
Mao et al. (2005) proposes a method to simplify the Planck function and to simulate the relation
between radiance of MODIS 31/32 and the temperature. The transmittance of the atmosphere and
emissivity of the land surface are the two key parameters of LST retrieval. Transmittance is often
obtained from the simulation of the atmosphere software (6s, LOWTRAN, MODTRAN, etc.).
However, in this algorithm water content can be retrieved from NIR channels of MODIS image and
then transmittance can be calculated from water content. The emissivity of land surface is estimated
from visible and infrared (VIR) and NIR band of MODIS data.
The simplification of Planck function: The general radiance transfer equation by Ottle and Stoll
(1993) for remote sensing of LST can be formulated as follows.
Bi (Ti ) = i ( ) i Bi (Ts ) + (1 i )Li + Li
36
5.5
Where Ts is the LST, Ti is the brightness temperature in channel i, i() is the atmospheric
transmittance in band i at viewing angle (zenith angle from nadir), and i is the ground emissivity. Bi
(Ts) is the ground radiance, and Li and Li are the downwelling and upwelling path radiances,
respectively. Upwelling and downwelling radiances and transmittance from equation 5.5 can be
obtained by applying radiative transfer model like MODTRAN. Every term of radiance transfer
equation owes Planck function. Therefore, it is a must to apply radiance transfer equation to solve
equation 5.5. The products of LST usually utilize the look-up table (LUT) which utilize a linear
interpolation to simplify the Planck function. After getting all the necessary data from the radiative
transfer model equation 5.5 can be re written as follows to get ground radiance iBi (Ts)
( Bi (Ti ) Li )
(1 i ) Li
i ( )
i Bi (Ts ) =
5.6
Equation 5.6 can be solved by Planck function as follows
i Bi (Ts ) =
i C1
i [exp(C 2 / i T ) 1]
5
5.7
Where C1 is first radiation constant =3.74151*10-16 Wm-2, C2 is second radiation constant =

0.0143879 mK and i is wave length of channel i. Combining equation 5.5 and 5.7 and knowing the
surface emissivity, it is possible to compute surface temperature by inverting equation 5.6 as follows:
Ti =
C2
i ln i C1 / i Bi (Ts )i + 1
5
5.8
In MODIS there are two thermal bands so from equation 5.8 there will be two unknown emessivities
and one surface temperature and implies that the equations are not solvable as it is. Basically, there
are three different techniques to make the above equation determinate by applying different
assumptions. These are Emissivity ration method, two temperature method and emissivity separation
method (TES).
However, according to (Mao et al., 2005) the above equation 5.5 is simplified as linear equation to fit
MODIS band 31 and 32 as equation 5.9 and 5.10 by passing radiative transfer model and planks
function .
For band 31: B31 (T ) = 0.13787T31 31.65677
5.9
For band 32: B32 (T ) = 0.11849T32 26.50036
5.10
The retrieval method of water content through MODIS data: - Among the 36 bands of MODIS,
five of them are NIR bands: 2 (0.865m), 5 (1.24 m), 17 (0.905 m), 18 (0.936m) and 19 (0.940
m). Band 17, 18 and 19 are three absorption bands, but bands 2 and 5 are atmosphere window bands.
Kaufman and Gao (1992), by many experiments, conclude that the retrieval of water content by ratio
is available and for details reference is made to the article. Five bands in MODIS are devised to
retrieve water content according to this principle. The two and three band ratio approaches to retrieve
the water content of the atmosphere. The equations are as follows:
w (i ) = (i ) / (2)
5.11
w (i ) = (i ) / [C1 (2) + C 2 (5)]
5.12
37
Where (i), (i=17,18,19),(2) and (5) represent the reflectance of bands 2 and 5 respectively, w
represents the transmittance of i channel. C1 and C2 are coefficients. For band 18, C1 equals 0.8 and
C2 equals 0.2 (C1 and C2 are computed according to the linear approximate between three bands
reflectance at the ground). The two approaches retrieve the water content of the atmosphere by using
the same principles that use the relationship between water content and the ratio of absorption band
and the window band of the atmosphere. For the relationship of water content and transmittance of the
atmosphere Kaufman and Gao (1992) gives the expression as equation 5.13.
w (19 / 2) = exp w
5.13
For complex ground surface = 0.02, = 0.651 and w is water content. w (transmittance) can be found
from the image of band 2 and band 19. So water content can be obtained through equation 5.14:
ln w
w =
5.14
According to Mao et al.(2005) the transmittances of MODIS 31/32 are prominently different at the
same water content. With the increase of water content of atmosphere, this difference of transmittance
also increases and the transmittance is also a function of temperature, although the temperature
influences little as compared to the water content. Therefore, they set an exponential equation for the
transmittance of MODIS 31/32 with water content as follows:
For band 31: 31 = 2.89798 1.88366e
( w / 21.22704 )
For band 32: 32 = 3.59289 + 4.60414e ( w / 32.70639)
5.15
5.16
Determination of emissivity of the ground: - emissivity of ground surface is also a critical

parameter that affects the accuracy of LST using split window algorithm. The emissivity is mainly
determined by the structure of ground surface and the range of the spectral band considered. Most
terrestrial materials have an emissivity higher than 0.97 with small changes in the ranges of MODIS
bands 31/32 (10.780-11.280m and 11.770-12.270 m). Generally speaking, the pixels of MODIS can
be classified as water pixels and land pixels mainly composed of various fractions of vegetation and
soil. However, for this study narrow band emissivities for MODIS band31 and 32 are taken from
MODIS emissivity product.
Split window algorithm: - Split-window algorithm is previously proposed to retrieve LST for
NOAA/AVHRR4/5. The general algorithm of split-window can be depicted as follows:
Ts = T4 + A(T4 + T5 ) + B
5.17
Ts represent LST, A and B are parameters. T4 and T5 are brightness temperatures of AVHRR 4/5,
respectively. The unit of Ts, T4, T5 is K.
The practical split window algorithm for retrieving LST from MODIS data developed by Mao et
al.(2005) is used. The algorithm is simplified based on emissivity and transmittance of MODIS band
31/32 as follows. For detail derivation of split window algorithm for MODIS data refer (Mao et al.,
2005).
Ts = (C 32 ( B31 + D31 ) C 31 ( D32 + B32 )) /(C 32 A31 C 31 A32 )
38
5.18
Where Ts is Land surface Temperature, and

A31 = 0.13787 31 31
B31 = 0.13787T31 + 31.65677 31 31 31.65677
C 31 = (1 31 )(1 + (1 31 ) 31 )0.13787
D31 = (1 31 )(1 + (1 31 ) 31 )31.65677
A32 = 0.11849 32 32
B32 = 0.11849T32 + 26.50036 32 32 26.50036
C 32 = (1 32 )(1 + (1 32 ) 32 )0.11849
D32 = (1 32 )(1 + (1 32) 32 )26.50036
All these series of equations are coded in ILWIS using script to retrieve LST from MODIS 31/32
bands of raw calibrated level 1B images. For ILWIS script see Appendix-4.
5.2.3.
Land surface temperature products from MODIS sensor
Besides the split window technique LST was derived directly from MODIS level 3 products as an
alternative. The MODIS LST and emissivity products provide per-pixel temperature and emissivity
values. Averaged temperatures are extracted in degree Kelvin with a day/night LST algorithm applied
to a pair of MODIS day time and night time observations. This method yields 1K accuracy for
materials with known emissivities, and view angle information is included in each LST/emissivity
product. The MODIS LST products are created as a sequence of products beginning with a swath
(scene) and progressing, through spatial and temporal transformations, to daily, eight day and monthly
global gridded products.
The MODIS LST products are archived in Hierarchal Data Format- Earth Observing System (HDFEOS). LST data products are produced as a series of seven products. The sequence begins as a swath
(Scene) at a nominal pixel spatial resolution of 1km at nadir and nominal swath coverage of 2030 or
2040 lines (along track, about five minutes of MODIS scans) by 1354 pixels per lines. A summarized
listing of the sequence of product is given in Table 5-3.
Table 5-3 Summery of MODIS LST products
Earth Science
Data Type
MOD11_L2
MOD11A1
MOD11B1
MOD11A2
MOD11C1
Product
level
L2
L3
L3
L3
L3
Spatial resolution
1Km at nadir
1Km (actual 0.927 km)
6km (actual 5.56 km)
1Km (actual 0.927 km)
0.050 by 0.050
Temporal
resolution
Swath (scene)
daily
daily
Eight days
daily
MOD11C2
L3
0.050 by 0.050
Eight days
MOD11C3
L3
0.050 by 0.050
monthly
Map projection
None. (lat, lon.)
Sinusoidal
Sinusoidal
Sinusoidal
equal-angle
geographic
equal-angle
geographic
equal-angle
geographic
39
MOD11A1 day time product is selected for this study because of its spatial and temporal resolution
(1km and daily) respectively and it only has data values with minimal cloud influence. The other
advantage of using this product is that the cloud affected pixels are already masked from the image.
MOD11A1 is constructed with the results in the MOD11_L2 (generated using the MODIS sensor
radiance data product MOD021km, the geolocation product MOD03, the atmospheric temperature and
water profile product MOD07_L2, the cloud mask product MOD35_L2, the quarterly land cover
MOD12Q1, and snow product MOD10_L2) products of a day through mapping the SDSs of all pixels
in MOD11_L2 products on to grids in the sinusoidal projection and averaging the LST values of
overlapping pixels in each grid with overlapping areas as weight. It is comprised of daytime and night
time LSTs, quality assessment, observation time, view angles, clear sky coverage and emissivities in
band 31 and 32 estimated by the classification-based emissivity method (Snyder et al., 1998) according
to land cover types in the pixel.
The MODIS LST products MDO11_L2, MOD11A1, MOD11A2, and MOD11B1 have been validated
at stage 1 with in situ measurements in 28 clear-sky cases including 19 cases over land sites in the
temperature range of 263-322 K and the column water vapour range of 0.4-4cm.
Acquirement of MODIS LST product

MODIS data or products can be found and downloaded free of charge from Earth Observing System
Data Gateway (http://edcimswww.cr.usgs.gov/pub/imswelcome). MODIS level 3 LST products are
defined on a global 1km sinusoidal grid. Because the grids are unmanageably large in their entirely
(43200X21600 pixels at 1km, and 172800X86400 pixels at 250m), they are divided into fixed tiles
approximately 100x100 in size.
Study Area
(h21v07)
Figure 5-4 MODIS sinusoidal grid system

Tiles are 10 degrees by 10 degrees at the equator. The tile coordinate system starts at (0, 0) (horizontal
tile number, vertical tile number) in the upper left corner and proceeds right (horizontal) and
downward (vertical). The tile in the bottom right corner is (35, 17). Based on the tile grids above, the
study area is located at (21, 7) horizontal tile number 21 and vertical tile number 7 as indicated above
in Figure 5-4.
40
Images re-projection: MODIS imagery, however, is in a new map projection called the Sinusoidal
(SIN) projection, which is not supported by most existing software packages. So before those images
can be used by other software packages, re-projection should be pre-processed. The MODIS Tool is
software designed to help individuals work with MODIS data by re-projecting MODIS images (Level
3) data products in to more standard map projections. The software outputs MODIS data in file format
that are supported by existing software packages GeoTIFF. By using this package, MODIS
productions were converted to GeoTIFF file format, which can be read by ILWIS software. The reprojection parameters are shown below:
Re-sampling type: Nearest Neighbour, UTM Zone: 37N
Output projection Type: UTM, Output pixel size: 1000m, Datum: WGS 84
The Converting GeoTIFF file can be imported to ILWIS for further image processing. The LST
product has a unit of Kelvin and the data type is 16-bit unsigned integer with a valid range of 750065535. To convert these integer values in to Kelvin multiply by a scale factor of 0.02 is applied. The
scale factor can be obtained from the attributes of the image using HDF viewer software.
5.2.4.
Potential temperature
Potential temperature is the temperature that a parcel would acquire if adiabatically brought to a
standard reference pressure P0, usually 1013mb. To minimize terrain effects that are due to large
elevation difference (around 1900 m) from the peak to the outlet of the catchment, potential
temperature is required for elevation correction against land surface temperature. Potential
temperature can be calculated using equation 5.19.
P
= LST 0
P
0.286
5.19
Where : is the potential temperature in K, LST is the near surface layer air temperature or land
surface temperature in K , P0 is standard reference pressure usually 1013 mb and P is the atmospheric
pressure at a surface in mb. P can be computed at different elevation (Z) by equation 5.20.
293 0.0065Z
P = 1013
293
5.26
5.20
Atmospheric pressure can be computed from the re-sampled DEM originally processed from SRTM
data at 90 m resolution into 1km MODIS resolution. After computing atmospheric pressure through
equation 5.20 and retrieving LST at 1km resolution from MODIS data potential temperature can be
calculated using equation 5.19 with the same spatial and temporal resolution of LST.
5.3.
Algorithm Development
The algorithms that are capable of estimating soil moisture from remote sensing is developed from 2nd
and 3rd order polynomial relations of ground measured soil moisture with scaled NDVI and LST, 3rd
order polynomial relation of ground measured soil moisture with fractional vegetation cover and
scaled LST and 2nd order polynomial relations of ground measured soil moisture with scaled NDVI
and scaled potential temperature.
41
2nd order polynomial relation algorithm M =
i=2 j=2
aijNDVI
* (i )
T*
( j)
i =0 j =0
This algorithm has a total of 9 coefficients by relating observed soil moisture with scaled NDVI and
scaled LST derived from remote sensing. NDVI and LST maps are produced for each day for the
study period following the steps mentioned under section 5.2. Scatter plots of NDVI and LST were
formed through crossing in ILWIS. From the scatter plots the minimum and maximum NDVI and LST
are determined and using these minimum and maximum values and by applying equation 4.10 and
4.11 the scaled LST and scaled NDVI are calculated for each pixel. After calculating the scaled
NDVI and scaled LST the polynomial relations are formed between the observed soil moisture with
scaled surface parameters at pixel level as follows.
M = a 00 + a10 N * + a 20 N * 2 + a 01T * + a 02T *2 + a11 N * T * + a12 N * T *2

+ a 21 N *2 T * + a 22 N *2 T * 2
Where M is observed soil moisture, a00-a22 are coefficients and N* and T* are scaled NDVI and scaled
LST respectively. The coefficients are determined using least square method.
3rd order polynomial relation algorithm M =
i =3 j =3
aijNDVI
* (i )
T*
( j)
i =0 j =0
The 3rd order polynomial relation algorithm is developed following the steps mentioned above but
with 17 coefficients defined as:
M = a 00 + a10 N * + a 20 N *2 + a 30 N * 3 + a 01T * + a 02T *2 +... + a 23 N * 2 T *3 + a 33 N *3 T *3

3rd order polynomial relation algorithm M =
i =3 j =3
aijF
(i )
T*
( j)
: This algorithm is developed with
i =0 j =0
the relations of observed soil moisture with fractional vegetation cover and scaled LST applying 3rd
order polynomial relations following the steps explained above. The fractional vegetation cover is
computed by equation 5.4 from NDVI. The equation is similar to the above 3rd order polynomial
algorithm with 17 coefficients except replacing scaled NDVI with fractional vegetation cover and
reads:
M = a 00 + a10 Fr + a 20 Fr + a30 Fr 3 + a01T * + a 02T *2 +... + a 23 Fr T *3 + a33 Fr T *3

2
2nd order polynomial relation algorithm M =
i =3 j =3
aijNDVI
* (i )
( j)
i =0 j =0
This algorithm is developed for the purpose of minimizing the topographic effect on the simulated soil
moisture by replacing the elevation correction potential surface temperature with LST. The set up of
this algorithm is similar to the above 2nd order polynomial with 9 coefficients and reads:
M = a 00 + a10 N * + a 20 N * 2 + a 01 * + a 02 *2 + a11 N * * + a12 N * *2

+ a 21 N *2 * + a 22 N *2 *2
42
5.4.
Statistical analysis
The spatial variations in soil moisture content can be understood in the context of a combination of
several hydrological processes (i.e. infiltration, vertical and lateral redistribution, and
evapotranspiration) that are related to precipitation, topography and land use. Topographic attributes
including land use and terrain indices like aspect, relative elevation and hill slope position largely
affect the spatial distribution of soil moisture content. The spatial and temporal distribution of
simulated soil moisture is characterized by:
Statistical analysis of the spatial and temporal distributions.
Identifying locations of temporal persistence.
Assessing the relation between soil moisture statistics and terrain attributes.
The statistical analysis consists of both spatial and temporal mean, standard deviation and coefficient
of variation of soil moisture simulated during the study period.
The spatial mean of soil moisture, v,t , in the catchment for each sampling day is computed as:
i = Ns
v ,t =
v ,i
i =1
5.21
Ns
Where Ns is the number of pixels in a given date s=1, 2, 3, Ns and v , i is the volumetric soil
moisture value for each pixel i.
The standard deviation, ( v ,t ) and the coefficient of variation (CVt) can be calculated for the
catchment as follows:
Ns
( v , t ) =
CVt =
, v ,t
v i
i =1
Ns 1
( v , t )
v ,t
5.22
5.23
The temporal mean of volumetric soil moisture, v, s , at each pixels over the study period is computed
as:
Nt
v,s =
v i
i =1
Nt
5.24
Where Nt is the number of days of the study period in which the soil is simulated at a particular pixels
and v , i is the pixel soil moisture value. Standard deviation, ( v , s ) in the time dimension and the
coefficient of variation, Cvs, of the volumetric soil moisture are defined in a similar fashion to
equation 5.22 and 5.23 respectively.
43
Temporal persistence of soil moisture patterns is assessed through time stability analysis based on the
mean relative difference, t , see (Vachaud et al., 1985) and the root mean square error of the relative
difference, RMSEi, see (Jacobs et al., 2004). The mean relative difference captures the difference
between a location and the spatial mean for all time periods and is evaluated as:
v , i v ,s
v ,s
i =1
Nt
i =
5.25
Nt
Nt is the total number of sampling dates. In this case, i is computed for each pixel in the catchment.
The pixels that have values of i close to zero indicate that the site has catchment averaged
conditions, while positive or negative values imply relatively wetter and drier. The variance of the
relative difference, ( i ) 2 , is defined as:
( i
N t
v , i v , s
1
i
=
N t 1 i =1 v , s
5.26
Small values of ( i ) 2 indicate stable sites in the time dimension where the relative wetness remains
constant during the study period. The RMSEi is a single metric used to classify time stability with
respect to both bias and spread around the bias (Jacobs et al., 2004) and is computed as:
RMSE i = i + ( i ) 2
2
1/ 2
5.27
Low values of RMSEi indicate time stable locations that capture catchment averaged conditions.
Topographic effects: Topographic properties include elevation, slope and aspect that dominantly
affect the estimated soil moisture by the developed algorithms. The analysis was done by crossing the
temporal mean soil moisture, temporal coefficient of variation and relative difference with
topographic fields. Slope and aspect are computed from the 90 m resolution DEM processed from
SRTM using ILWIS software and re-sampled to 1000m pixel resolution to match the resolution of the
MODIS image.
44
6.
6.1.
Results, analysis and discussion

Observed soil moisture
The soil moisture was measured under different land covers inside and outside of the Gumara
catchment at different locations both using direct and indirect methods. Soil moisture measured
directly by gravimetric methods was analyzed in laboratory while soil moisture measured indirectly
using theta probe is analyzed by averaging many measurements for a single sampling site as shown in
Figure 3-1. The correlation of both direct and indirect soil moisture measurement is done for sampling
sites of which both measurements were taken and as shown in Figure 6-1. From the correlation made
between the two the correlation coefficient R2= 0.86 was obtained.
0.6
y = 1.0397x - 0.0182
2
-3
Theta probe-SM (cmcm )
The reason for using both direct and indirect measurements in the field is to calibrate the indirect
measurement (Theta probe) by the direct one (gravimetric method) measurements. From the
correlation the slope of the trend line is almost 1 and the offset is less than 0.02 with good correlation
coefficient. All this tells us that the two measurements are of good agreement. Less than 14% of the
variation is caused by other factors than soil moisture, so the Theta probe data can be used as
reference measurements for further analysis.
R = 0.864
0.4
0.2
0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
3
-3
Gravimetric-SM (cm cm )
Figure 6-1 Correlation of soil moisture between direct and indirect methods
6.2.
6.2.1.
Remote sensing measurements

NDVI
NDVI maps are retrieved from MODIS images of all days when soil moisture was measured in the
field (see section 5.2.1). Table 6-1 shows, the minimum average NDVI of the catchment is 0.53 on
Sep.18, 2008 and the maximum average NDVI is 0.68 on Sep.19, 2008. The standard deviation of the
average NDVI is 0.049 for 9 days. Generally, the result shows that the temporal variations of the
spatial average of NDVI values are low for all days. However, the average NDVI values are high for
45
all days when soil moisture measurements were taken. This can be seen on the NDVI map of Sep. 23,
2008 in Figure 6-4. The NDVI maps of the other days are shown in Appendix-8. The image of Sep.26,
2008 was removed from the analysis because it was completely covered by clouds.
Table 6-1 NDVI values for Gumara catchment
DAY
18-09-08
19-09-08
20-09-08
22-09-08
23-09-08
24-09-08
25-09-08
27-09-08
29-09-08
NDVI-minimum
0.101
0.125
0.104
0.117
0.12
0.129
0.143
0.100
0.101
NDVI-maximum
0.779
0.761
0.758
0.89
0.765
0.792
0.765
0.756
0.776
STDEV
NDVI-average
0.53
0.68
0.61
0.67
0.63
0.63
0.59
0.57
0.57
0.049
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
After atmospheric correction
29-09-08
27-09-08
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
Before atmospheric correction

18-09-08
NDVI
Change of NDVI before and after applying atmospheric correction: - atmospheric correction is
particularly important in calculating the vegetation index using the reflectance in the red and nearinfrared bands, since aerosol increases by reflecting back and perceptible water decreases by
absorbing, the reflectance in each spectral band. Consequently, these effects make the NDVI value
smaller than their true value. From the results obtained NDVI increases after atmospheric correction
is done due to the fact that the impact of water vapour (absorption) is greater for NIR channels. The
average NDVI of Gumara catchment before and after is presented in Figure 6-2. Since the
atmospheric conditions have major effect on NDVI image atmospherically corrected NDVI is used for
to simulate soil moisture. Figure 6-3 and Figure 6-4 shows the NDVI map before and after
atmospheric correction of the Gumara catchment of Sep.23, 2008.
Days
Figure 6-2 Average NDVIs of the study area before and after atmospheric correction
46
Figure 6-3 NDVI map from MODIS data Sep.23, 2008 before atmospheric correction
Figure 6-4 NDVI map from MODIS data Sep.23, 2008 after atmospheric correction
6.2.2.
LST (Land Surface Temperature)
Remote sensing based land surface temperatures were retrieved in two ways. 1) From the MODIS
products and 2) Calculated from MODIS raw images using the practical split window technique as
explained in section 5.2.2. Based on the results of the two methods, the average differences obtained
for the study period range from 1.88 K to 2.69 K as shown in Table 6-2. From the table it is clear that
the differences between the minimum values are relatively higher than the differences between the
maximum values. This indicates that high differences occur for the pixels which have lowest LST
values (pixels mostly near to the cloud affected pixels). Actually, the cloud pixels were removed from
the images using MODIS cloud masking products during the image preprocessing, but the values of
the pixels that are near to the cloud affected pixels remains low as can be seen from the LST map
produced in Figure 6-6.
The results of the two remote sensing based methods were also compared with the ground measured
LST using radiometer during the field work as shown in Figure 6-5. In reality it is difficult to obtain
in situ LST matching the MODIS image pixels with 1km x1km resolution exactly at the overpass time
of the satellite for validation of the LST products. Generally, LST varies spatially but the ground
measurement with radiometer measures at the temperature of a very small surface, practically one
point compared to a MODIS pixel. Furthermore, ground emissivity results in an error in the ground
47
measurement of LST. However, to validate the remote sensing based LST with ground truth data the
radiometer was programmed to record at every 5 minutes automatically to overcome the problem of
satellite overpass time differences. Additionally, different emissivities were assumed based on the
land cover where the radiometer is installed using the MODIS spectral emissivity library. The
comparison shows that LST obtained from the MODIS product almost matches with the ground
measurements while the calculated LST values lowers 2.0K 2.5K than the measured values
excluding the cloud affected days in Figure 6-5. Therefore, in the further analysis, the MODIS LST
products were used for algorithm development for the estimation of soil moisture from remote
sensing. The MODIS LST products of the remaining days are found in Appendix-9.
315
310
305
Temperature (K)
300
LST@ emissivity 0.956
295
LST @emissivity 0.984

LST @emissivity 0.992
290
MODIS Terra_calculated LST

285
280
MODIS Terra LST product
Cloud effect
MODIS Aqua calculated LST

MODIS Aqua LST product
275
9/
2
2/
9/ 08 1
22 0
:
9/ / 08 20 A
2
3
9/ 2/ 0 : 20 M
23 8
/0 8: PM
9/ 8 1 05
23 2 PM
9/ / 08 :5 0
23
A
/0 5: 3 M
9/ 8 1 5 A
23 0
:
2 M
9/ / 08 0 A
2
3
9/ 3/ 0 : 05 M
24 8
/0 7: PM
9/ 8 1 55
24 2 PM
9/ / 08 :4 0
24
A
/0 5: 2 M
9/ 8 1 5 A
24 0
: M
9/ / 08 1 0 A
24 2
:
9/ / 08 55 M
25
/0 7: 4 PM
9/ 8 1 0 P
25 2
:2 M
9/ / 08 5 A
25 5: M
/
9/ 0 10
28 8
/0 9: AM
9/ 8 1 55
28 2 AM
/ :2
9/ 08 5 P
28 5: M
1
9/ / 08 0 P
29 9: M
/
0
9/ 8 55
2
2 P
9/ 9/ 08 : 40 M
29
7
/ 0 : 2 AM
8
12 5 A
:1 M
0
PM
270
Date/Time (UTC+2:00)
Figure 6-5 LST obtained from radiometric measurements and from MODIS instrument
Figure 6-6 MODIS LST product Sep.23, 2008
48
Figure 6-7 LST calculated by split window technique for MODIS image Sep.23, 2008
Table 6-2 Minimum, maximum and average LST products and LST calculated
DAY
18-09-08
19-09-08
20-09-08
22-09-08
23-09-08
24-09-08
25-09-08
27-09-08
29-09-08
6.3.
LST Calculated (K)

Minimum
Maximum
280.68
288.78
280.30
281.70
282.40
280.10
280.50
280.00
280.60
299.60
297.80
306.50
300.60
297.50
302.00
302.20
304.70
309.10
Average
Minimum
293.78
294.83
298.72
294.18
293.83
295.72
294.31
297.60
299.49
280.48
291.04
287.22
285.72
286.12
283.26
286.46
284.44
283.12
LST product (K)

Maximum Average Average
Error
301.34
296.24
2.46
300.04
297.52
2.69
307.42
300.60
1.88
301.52
296.73
2.55
299.92
296.17
2.34
304.52
298.35
2.63
303.90
296.50
2.19
306.86
299.52
1.92
308.82
301.96
2.47
Scatter plots of NDVI and LST
The scatter plots for surface temperature versus NDVI for the MODIS images of the study area of
Sep. 24, 2008 and Sep.18, 2008 are shown in Figure 6-8. From the scatter plot, NDVI and LST have
negative relations for most pixels found inside the triangle formed. Over bare soil, variations in
surface temperature are highly correlated with variations in surface water content. Thus, point A and
B on Figure 6-8 represent moist soil (high NDVI, low LST) and dry bare soil (low NDVI, high LST)
respectively. As the fractional vegetation cover increases, surface temperature decreases. Point C in
the figure corresponds to continuous vegetation canopies with a high resistance to evapotranspiration
(high NDVI, relatively high LST), e.g. due to low soil water availability. The right enveloping line of
observations in the space, B-C, represents the low evapotranspiration line or dry condition. The left
enveloping line A-D represents the line of potential evapotranspiration or wet conditions. The concept
of NDVI-LST space is easy to understand qualitatively, however, since the boundary of polygon is
highly depended on many factors like surface physical variables and atmospheric properties, it is
difficult to draw clear and unique lines (wet limit and dry limit) that would be applicable to different
sites.
49
NDVImax
0.8
Warm edge
0.6
NDVImin
NDVI
0.4
0.2
Tmin
Tmax
0
0
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
-0.2
Corrupted pixels
-0.4
-0.6
Water pixels
-0.8
LST (0C)
1
NDVImax
0.8
Warm edge
0.6
NDVI
0.4
NDVImin
0.2
Tmin
Tmax
0
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
-0.2
Corrupted pixels
-0.4
Water pixels
-0.6
-0.8
LST (0C)
Figure 6-8 Scatter plots of LST vs NDVI of Sep.24, 2008 upper and Sep.18, 2008 lower:
A relatively low number of observations at temperatures higher than the warm edge and lower than
the cold edge exist due to terrain effects and cloud which are not considered in the analysis.
50
6.4.
Simulated soil moisture
Soil moisture is estimated from remote sensing by relating the remote sensing derived NDVI and LST
with ground observed soil moisture, using the proposed triangle method. A total of 35 sample points
were used to calculate algorithm and 14 points were used for validation. A system of equation 4.12
was set up using ground observed soil moisture and MODIS scaled NDVI and LST for all the pixels
matching the site of each observed sampling sites. To check the performance of the algorithms
developed, both calibration and validation is done for this study. In this study 1st order, 2nd order and
3rd order polynomial relations of observed soil moisture with scaled NDVI (N*) and scaled LST (T*);
and also 3rd order polynomial relation of soil moisture with fractional vegetation cover (Fr) and scaled
LST are tested. Both from calibration and validation a strong correlation between the simulated and
the observed soil moisture is obtained from 2nd and 3rd order polynomial relations whereas poor
correlation is obtained from 1st order polynomial relations.
The objective functions used for calibrating the coefficients aij are correlation coefficient R2 and
RMSE. The coefficients aij from equation 4.12 for each algorithm obtained after calibrations are
tabulated in Table 6-3, Table 6-4 and Table 6-5. The soil moisture maps of Sep.23, 2008 simulated by
using the algorithms developed are shown in Figure 6-9 and Figure 6-10. The spatial mean of the
simulated soil moisture for the study period by the three algorithms is indicated in Table 6-6.
Table 6-3 Coefficients for 2nd order polynomial relations
aij
j=0
j=1
j=2
i=0
0.6
-3.756
15.748
i=1
-0.736
11.321
-46.84
i=2
0.948
-9.859
35.293
Table 6-4 Coefficients for 3rd order polynomial relation with N*
aij
j=0
j=1
j=2
j=3
i=0
1.386
-6.838
8.768
-6.958
i=1
-4.992
30.736
-20.909
36.528
i=2
5.321
-26.044
-33.013
-43.56
i=3
-0.599
-1.383
49.197
20.445
51
Table 6-5 Coefficients for 3rd order polynomial relation with Fr
aij
j=0
j=1
j=2
j=3
i=0
1.162
-6.101
10.562
4.504
i=1
-12.862
91.686
-162.35
19.18
i=2
32.299
-204.43
286.33
51.089
i=3
-18.8
94.016
-31.32
-191.82
(a)
(b)
Figure 6-9 Simulated soil moisture by (a) 2nd and (b) 3rd order polynomial relation Sep.23, 2008
Figure 6-10 Simulated soil moisture by 3rdorder Fr and LST Sep.23, 2008
Table 6-6 Average soil moisture of Gumara catchment using three algorithms developed
Day
18-09-08
19-09-08
20-09-08
22-09-08
23-09-08
24-09-08
25-09-08
27-09-08
29-09-08
52
2ndorder N* Average 3rd order N*Average 3rdorder Fr Average

SM (cm3cm-3)
SM (cm3cm-3)
SM (cm3cm-3)
0.40
0.39
0.38
0.43
0.45
0.44
0.38
0.39
0.40
0.42
0.40
0.39
0.38
0.38
0.37
0.39
0.38
0.38
0.39
0.38
0.37
0.36
0.35
0.35
0.39
0.37
0.37
6.4.1.
Cross correlation between simulated and observed soil moisture
The average soil moisture simulated using the three algorithms developed is indicated in Table 6-6.
Soil moisture simulated by all the three algorithms has found a strong correlation with the observed
soil moisture as indicated in Figure 6-11, Figure 6-12 and Figure 6-13. After calibrating the
algorithms the correlation coefficient R2 obtained from three algorithms are greater than 0.71 and
RMSEs are less than of 0.045 for calibration dataset and greater than 0.672 for validation datasets
with maximum RMSE of 0.028. Figure 6-11 shows the correlation made between the simulated soil
moisture using the algorithm developed with 2nd order polynomial relation to the observed soil
moisture.
Calibration (Sep.18, 2009, Sep.26, 2008)
Validation (Sep.27,2008 and Sep.29, 2008)

0.6
R = 0.7139
0.5
R = 0.7451
y = 0.8625x + 0.061
0.5
SM_Simulated (cm/cm )
y = 0.6966x + 0.1129
SM_Sim ulated (cm /cm )
0.6
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
3
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.6
0.1
0.2
0.3
SM_Measured (cm /cm )
0.4
0.5
0.6
SM Measured (cm /cm )
Figure 6-11 Correlation of observed and simulated soil moisture using 2nd order polynomial relation
Figure 6-12 below shows the correlation made between the simulated and the observed soil moisture
when using 3rd order polynomial relation of ground observed soil moisture with land surface
parameters of scaled NDVI and scaled LST. The correlation coefficient R2 obtained from this
correlation is 0.805 and 0.672 after calibration and validation respectively with the RMSE of 0.037
and 0.033 for calibration and validation datasets respectively.
0.5
y = 0.8897x + 0.05
0.5
R = 0.6722
R = 0.8056
0.6
SM_simulated (cm/cm )
y = 0.7601x + 0.0889
SM_simulated (cm/cm )
Validation (Sep.27, 2008 and Sep.29, 2008)
Calibration (Sep. 18,2008-Sep.26, 2008)
0.6
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
3
0.5
3
SM_measured(cm /cm )
0.6
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
3
0.5
0.6
SM meassured (cm /cm )
Figure 6-12 Correlation of observed and simulated soil moisture from 3rd order polynomial relation
53
Like the above two algorithms a strong correlation is also obtained between the simulated soil
moisture and the ground observed soil moisture when using 3rd order polynomial relation of observed
soil moisture, scaled LST and fractional vegetation cover (Fr). From the correlation as shown in
Figure 6-13 the correlation coefficients R2 obtained are 0.73 and 0.80 with RMSE of 0.044 and 0.029
for calibration and validation respectively.
Validation (Sep.27, 2008 and Sep.29, 2008)
Calibration (Sep.18, 2008-Sep.26, 2008)
0.6
3
0.5
y = 1.100x - 0.031
y = 0.757x + 0.094
0.4
SM_ Sim ulated (cm /cm )
0.5
SM_Simulated (cm/cm )
0.6
0.7
R = 0.733
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
R = 0.796
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
3
0.6
0.7
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
3
0.5
0.6
Figure 6-13 Correlation of observed and simulated soil moisture from 3rd order relation of Fr
6.4.2.
Sensitivity Analysis
Any calibrated model or algorithm has its own uncertainties. Therefore, in order to reduce the
uncertainty, it is essential to subject the calibrated algorithm to a sensitivity analysis. The main
purpose of the sensitivity analysis is to quantify how sensitive the algorithm is to certain changes in
the input data and as such, a sensitivity analysis basically is to quantify on the uncertainty of the
calibrated model. It defines which parameters have the most dominant effect on the calibration result.
Sensitivity analysis is done by increasing and decreasing the input parameters of the algorithm (i.e.
NDVI and LST) to a certain percent. Sensitivity analysis is used to ascertain how a given model
depends upon the input parameters. If a small change in a parameter results in relatively large changes
in the model outcomes, the model is said to be sensitive to that parameter. This may mean that the
parameter has to be determined very accurately or that the model has to be redesigned for low
sensitivity. It is an important method for checking the quality of a given model, as well as a powerful
tool to ensure which parameters should be emphasized when running the model (Rientjes, 2007).
The percentage increase and decrease is based on the expected limit of accuracies of the input
parameters. In this case, the expected accuracy of the LST is 20K and NDVI is 0.03 from LST
algorithm theoretical bases document version 3.3 from the SMAC accuracy respectively. Therefore
sensitivity analysis is done by increasing and decreasing values of NDVI and LST by 5 % for two
objective functions selected for calibration. Based on the sensitivity analysis LST was found to be
most sensitive parameter for two algorithms as can be seen in Figure 6-14 and Figure 6-15.
54
For 1% increase and decrease of LST the R2 for 2nd order relation decreases to 0.39 and 0.12
respectively while for 1% increase and decrease of NDVI R2 for 2nd order polynomial relation
decreases to 0.70 and 0.67 respectively. For 3rd order polynomial relation a 1% increase and decrease
of LST results in a decrease of R2 to 0.24 and 0.03 respectively where as a 1% increase and decrease
of NDVI results a decrease of R2 to 0.79 and 0.75 respectively.
An increase or decrease of LST by 1 % raises RMSE to 0.21 and 0.2. Again 2% increase and decrease
of LST results in an increase of RMSE to 0.72 and 0.52 from 3rd order relation. The increase and
decrease of LST and NDVI also increases RMSE for 2nd order polynomial. 1% increase and decrease
of LST results an increase of RMSE to 0.2 and 0.1 respectively again RMSE increases to 0.57 and
0.34 by increasing and decreasing of LST in 2nd order polynomial. In general the R2 decreases and
RMSE increases either by increasing or decreasing of both NDVI and LST. However, the decreasing
and increasing rate of R2 and RMSE respectively is higher for LST than for NDVI.
Sensitivity Analysis (2nd order)
0.8
0.7
Objective function (R2)
(a)
NDVI
0.6
LST
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-6
-4
-2
Percentage increase (%)
Sensitivity Analysis (2ndorder)
Objective function
(RMSE-LST)
0.14
3
2.5
LST
0.12
NDVI
0.1
0.08
1.5
0.06
0.04
0.5
0.02
0
-6
-4
-2
Objective function
(RMSE-NDVI)
3.5
(b)
0
0
Percentage value increase (%)
Figure 6-14 Sensitivity analysis of the 2nd order relation (a) R2 (b) RMSE
Sensitivity Analysis (3rd OrderN*)
0.9
Objective function (R )
(a)
0.8
NDVI
0.7
LST
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
-6
-4
-2
0
-0.1 0
Percentage value increase(%)
55
Sensitivity Analysis (3rd order N*)

Objective function (MSE-LST)
(b)
LST
0.09
NDVI
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05
3
0.04
0.03
0.02
1
0.01
0
-6
-4
-2
0
0
Objective function (RMSE-NDVI
0.1
Percentge value increase(%)
Figure 6-15 Sensitivity analysis of the 3rd order polynomial relation (a) R2 (b) RMSE
6.4.3.
Comparisons of the algorithms
304
0.8
302
0.7
300
0.6
298
0.5
296
0.4
294
NDVI
LST( C)
Four different algorithms are developed including the algorithms developed for local elevation
corrections based on the triangle method approach to simulate soil moisture from remote sensing.
Equation 4.12 represents nth order polynomial relation between the measured soil moisture, scaled
NDVI and scaled LST. Based on the calibration, the 3rd order polynomial relation with 17 terms is
found to be more accurate than the others but less flexible i.e. the spatial mean variations of the
simulated soil moisture temporally is limited as can be seen from Figure 6-17. On the other hand, a 1st
order polynomial relation with four coefficients is less accurate which is not present in this report.
The 2nd order polynomial relations with 9 terms are found to be the most optimal and relatively
flexible i.e. the spatial mean variation of simulated soil moisture range is relatively high and also the
error associated with data accuracy is low.
0.3
LST_Calculated_Average
LST_product_average
NDVI_Average
292
290
0.2
0.1
288
29-09-08
27-09-08
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
Days
Figure 6-16 Spatial average of NDVI, the LST product and the calculated LST during study period
56
26
0.46
24
23
0.38
0.36
2nd order polynomial
0.34
3rd order N* polynomial
22
3rd order Fr polynomial
0.32
0.4
25
Air temperature ( C)
-3
0.42
Soil moisture (cmcm )
0.44
21
AirTemperature
29-09-08
27-09-08
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
20
18-09-08
0.3
Days
Figure 6-17 Average of soil moisture for 3 algorithms and air temperature
6.5.
Statistical analysis and results of spatio-temporal variation of soil
moisture
In mountainous catchments like Gumara catchment knowledge on the relation of the mean soil
moisture and its spatial variability is very effective. Figure 6-18 (a) presents the spatial standard
deviation, ( v ) as a function of spatial mean soil moisture simulated by the 2nd order polynomial
t
0.07
0.18
0.06
0.16
Coefficient of variation
S ta n d a rd d e v a tio n
relation.
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0.34
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0.36
0.38
0.4
Mean soil moisture (cm3/cm3)
0.42
0.44
0
0.34
0.36
0.38
0.4
0.42
0.44
Mean soil moisture (cm 3/cm 3)
Figure 6-18 Statistical representation of simulated soil moisture of the study area:(a) standard
deviation and (b) coefficient of variation versus spatial mean soil moisture for each day.
From the Figure 6-18 (a) the standard deviation decreases as the mean soil moisture increases,
indicating the soil moisture variability increases as soils becomes dryer. This result is consistent with
field observation i.e. the soil moisture increases or soils saturate when rainfall occurs in the study
57
area. Under such conditions some areas remain wet while the others dry quickly when rainfall has
seased.
Spatial variability of soil moisture for a catchment during the study period is analysed by comparing
temporal statistics of the simulated soil moisture as shown in Figure 6-19.
(a)
(b)
Figure 6-19 (a) Temporal mean of the simulated soil moisture (cm3cm-3) and (b) coefficient of
variation, CVs, at pixel level during the study period.
The temporal mean of soil moisture Figure 6-19 (a) shows higher temporal mean exists generally at
higher elevated areas. But Figure 6-19 (b) indicates that, higher elevations show lower temporal
variability while lower elevation show higher temporal variability. The spatial variability of soil
moisture from Figure-18 (b) during the study period is lower than the temporal variability of soil
moisture among the pixels from Figure-19 (b).
Temporal persistency of simulated soil moisture patterns:- The temporal persistence of spatial soil
moisture patterns can help to identify how landscape characteristics affect basin hydrology (Jacobs et
al., 2004). This temporal persistency can be characterized by RMSEi as shown in Figure 6-20. The
time stable pixels that capture the catchment average (low RMSEi) are found in the mid elevation of
the catchment where as pixels with high temporal variability (high RMSEi) are located at low
elevation area as indicated in Figure 6-20.
Figure 6-20 Root mean square error of the relative difference, RMSEi, of the estimated soil moisture
These results indicate that temporal persistency can directly be related to elevations. In this study, the
pixels with higher temporal variability conditions are located at low elevation area which have
58
relatively high LST see Figure 6-6 possibly due to the vegetation cover type, hydraulic conductivity,
storativity and physical properties of soils in the study area.
Terrain controlling effects on simulated soil moisture: - Since the topography of the study area is
undulated and rugged, terrain effects on the simulated soil moisture must be assessed to allow for
development of algorithms to correct for soil moisture at high elevated areas. To determine the terrain
effects on the simulated soil moisture, slope and aspect for the catchment was derived from DEM
processed from SRTM data. The derived slope and aspect map of 90m resolution are re-sampled to
1000m resolution to match with 1km resolution of simulated soil moisture. Figure 6-21 shows the
joint distribution of terrain attributes and simulated soil moisture statistics. The statistics shown are
the temporal mean soil moisture, the temporal coefficient of variation and the relative difference
(RMSEi), as compared to the elevation, slope and aspect of the catchment.
Elevation X Cvt
Elevation_Temporal SM mean
0.30
Elevation X Temporal mean of SM
Elevation X Cv temporal
0.25
Coefficient of variation (CVt)
Temporal SM mean (cm3/cm3)
0.50
0.45
0.40
0.35
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.30
1800
1900
2000
2100
2200
2300
2400
2500
0.00
2600
1800
Elevation
DElevation_ RMSRdi
1900
2000
2100
2200
Elevation
2300
2400
2500
2600
Slope_resample x Tempo_average
0.50
0.25
Slope X Temporal mean SM

Temporal mean SM (cm3/cm3)
Elevation X RMSEdi
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.40
0.35
0.30
0.00
1800
1900
2000
2100
2200
Elevation
2300
2400
2500
10
20
30
Slope (% )
40
50
Slope_resample x RMSR_di
Slope_resample x Cv_tempo
0.30
0.25
Slope X Cvt
0.25
Slope X RMSEdi
0.20
0.20
RMSRdi
RMSRdi
0.20
0.45
0.15
0.15
0.10
0.10
0.05
0.05
0.00
0.00
0
10
20
30
Slope (% )
40
50
10
20
30
Slope (% )
40
50
59
ASPECTD_RES_RN x Tempo_average
ASPECTD_RES_RN x Cv_tempo
0.50
0.30
ASPECT x CVt
0.25
Temporal mean SM (cm3/cm3)
ASPECT(deg.) x Temporal mean SM

0.45
0.40
0.35
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.30
0.00
50
100
150
200
ASPECT(Deg.)
250
300
350
50
100
150
200
ASPECT (Deg.)
250
300
350
ASPECTD_RES_RN x RMSR_di
ASPECT x RMSEdi
0.25
RMSEdi
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
0
50
100
150
200
ASPECT (Deg.)
250
300
350
Figure 6-21 Joint distribution of terrain attributes and simulated soil moisture.
The first three figures from the top of Figure 6-21 highlight the control exerted by elevation on the
temporal mean soil moisture and its temporal variability. High elevations in the catchment are
characterized by high mean soil moisture exhibiting low temporal variability, CVt, and soil moisture
values that are time stable (low RMSEi) while also the reverse is true for low elevation areas.
Considering slope, there are many pixels found in the low to intermediate slopes (5-20%) that have
high mean soil moisture. The temporal variability and time stability generally decreases as the slope
increases. Slope aspect does not appear to have strong relation with temporal mean soil moisture,
temporal variability as well as time stability as shown in Figure 6-21.
Generally, from the statistical spatio-temporal analysis high elevated areas in the catchment is
characterized by high mean soil moisture, low temporal variability and time stable (low RMSEi) as
compared to low elevated areas. Also from the analysis of Figure 6-21, elevation is the dominant
terrain controlling factor for the simulated soil moisture. Based on the field observations and few
samples of the measured soil moisture in the field, high elevated areas had relatively low soil
moisture. However, from the simulation by using the algorithms developed in the relations of the
observed soil moisture with remote sensing NDVI and LST most field days have high soil moisture at
high elevation area as shown in Figure 6-9 and Figure 6-10. Presumably this discrepancy is coming
from topographic factors associated with the LST. The correlation coefficient and RMSE obtained
from the comparison between the observed and estimated soil moisture from Figure 6-11, Figure
6-12 and Figure 6-13 indicate that soil moisture was estimated in a better accuracy at low elevated
area because most of the observed soil moisture sampling was taken from low elevated area.
Therefore, elevation correction is imposed to simulate relatively low soil moisture at high elevated
areas than at the low elevated areas.
60
6.6.
Elevation correction for the simulated soil moisture
From sensitivity analysis LST was found the most sensitive parameter and based on terrain controlling
factor analysis, elevation was found the dominant topographic controlling factor. In this specific study
an effort is made to correct the simulated soil moisture at high elevation area in relation to the
sensitivity parameter of LST and the major controlling factor of elevation. Most of the high elevated
areas have low LST and have high simulated soil moisture from Figure 6-6 and Figure 6-9
respectively. From the relation of sensitive parameter and dominant topographic factor potential
surface temperature is found to be the best parameter which can correct the soil moisture at high
elevation areas by minimizing the large difference of LST from high to low elevation areas due to
large elevation differences. Because it has a relation with the sensitive parameter LST and major
controlling factor elevation from its formula in equation 5.19 and 5.20. Therefore, other algorithm is
developed from the relation of the observed soil moisture with scaled NDVI and scaled potential
temperature applying triangle method.
6.6.1.
Potential surface temperature
This variable is used to correct the topographic effects on the simulated soil moisture and it was
computed using equation 5.19 for each day when the soil moisture measurement was taken during the
field campaign. The variations of LST obtained from MODIS LST product ranges from 280 K to 310
K is higher as compared to the variation of potential temperature that ranges only from 312 K to 323
K as can be seen from Figure 6-6 and Figure 6-22. The high variation of LST between the two
elevation areas is due to the effect of topography which results in high soil moisture on the elevated
area. Therefore, to minimize the variation of LST in the catchment due to topographic effect, potential
temperature is found the best parameter. The results of Sep.23, 2008 is shown in Figure 6-22 below
while the other days are found in Appendix-9.
Figure 6-22 Potential temperature map of Sep.23, 2008
6.6.2.
nd
Simulated soil moisture using 2

temperature
order relation to NDVI and potential
Applying the same triangle methods and procedures for potential temperature, the 2nd order
polynomial relation of ground observed soil moisture with scaled NDVI and scaled potential
61
temperature is formed. The coefficients of 2nd order polynomial relation determined after calibration
are listed in Table 6-7 and the correlations between the observed with the newly simulated soil
moisture are shown in Figure 6-24 for calibration and validation data sets. From the soil moisture map
simulated by 2nd order polynomial relation as indicated in Figure 6-23, high elevated areas have
relatively less soil moisture than the lower elevated areas. For spread sheets of the coefficients see
Appendix-11.
Figure 6-23 simulated soil moisture by 2nd order relation with potential temperature (Sep.23, 2008)
Table 6-7 Coefficients for 2nd order polynomial relation for potential temperature
aij
j=0
j=1
j=2
i=0
-1.426
5.063
-3.158
i=1
8.333
-15.459
3.15
i=2
-10.92
12.76
5.905
Validation
Calibration
0.6
3
0.5
Simulated-SM (cm /cm )
y = 0.651x + 0.130
2
R = 0.703
y = 0.741x + 0.103
0.5
R = 0.626
Simulated-SM (cm/cm )
0.6
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
3
Observed-soil moisture (cm /cm )
0.6
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
3
0.6
Observed-soil moisture (cm /cm )
Figure 6-24 Correlations of observed and simulated soil moisture by the 2nd order polynomial relation
using potential temperature
From Figure 6-23 the high elevation areas have relatively low soil moisture as compared to low
elevation areas which can be hydraulically logical moreover it corresponds very much with field
observations. Also from the correlation coefficient obtained from Figure 6-24, one can conclude that
62
the low elevation area is well simulated by applying potential surface temperature because most of the
correlated soil samples were taken from low elevated areas. Soil moisture map estimated by 2nd order
polynomial relation algorithm is indicated in Appendix-10.
6.7.
Simulated soil moisture at different elevation zones before and after
correction
To see the effect of the major controlling factor (elevation) in detail on the simulated soil moisture
map, the DEM is classified in to three elevation zones based on their elevation ranges as:
Low zone elevation ranges from 1780-1900 m.a.s.l
Medium zone elevation ranges from 1900-2300 m.a.s.l.
High zone elevation ranges from 2300-3704 m.a.s.l
Figure 6-25 Elevation zone map of Gumara catchment

The average soil moisture for each zone for each day is calculated by crossing both the raster maps of
elevation zone after re-sampling 90 m DEM to 1km resolution with the simulated soil moisture maps
using the two 2nd order polynomial algorithms (before and after correction). The result is tabulated in
Table 6-8.
Table 6-8 Average soil moisture and LST of each zone simulated by 2nd order relation with LST
Day
18-09-08
19-09-08
20-09-08
22-09-08
23-09-08
24-09-08
25-09-08
27-09-08
29-09-08
Elevation zones average soil moisture

(cm3cm-3)
Low
Medium
High
Low
0.39
0.38
0.39
24.60
0.42
0.47
0.45
25.11
0.40
0.39
0.39
30.32
0.41
0.40
0.39
24.81
0.36
0.36
0.41
24.78
0.38
0.38
0.38
27.59
0.39
0.37
0.38
26.23
0.33
0.34
0.38
29.67
0.35
0.36
0.39
31.78
Elevation zones average

LST (oC)
Medium
High
23.35
20.95
24.92
23.44
28.16
25.21
24.12
22.05
23.58
21.28
26.03
22.65
24.36
21.95
27.00
23.19
29.72
25.58
Air-Temp.
22.29
22.56
23.23
23.18
23.23
23.95
25.43
25.38
24.89
63
Soil moisture simulated by using 2nd order relation algorithm with LST at three elevation zones for
different days indicates that high elevation zone have relatively high soil moisture compared to the
other elevation zones for the last five days in Figure 6-26. Those days are days when the air
temperature increases from 23.18oC on Sep.23, 2008 to 25.38oC on Sep.27, 2008 (Table 6-8). The
increasing of air temperature indicates there was no rainfall on the study area. This was confirmed
during field work. However, during field work the lower elevated area was wetter than the higher
elevated area. Therefore, improving the algorithm is imperative to remove the error due to terrain
effects or the error coming from the insufficient number of sample points at higher elevated areas.
Soil moisture (cm 3/cm 3)
0.5
Low elevation zone

Medium elevation zone
0.45
High elevation zone
0.4
0.35
29-09-08
27-09-08
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
0.3
Date
Figure 6-26 Average Soil moisture for 3 elevation zones before correction
LST Temperature (0c)
35
30
25
20
Low elevation zone
15
10
High elevation zone
Air temperature at low elevation zone
29-09-08
27-09-08
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
Date
Figure 6-27 Average LST for 3 elevation zones and air temperature at low elevation area
From the results obtained by using potential temperature, it is possible to reduce on terrain effects that
propagated from the algorithms developed using NDVI and LST to the simulated soil moisture as
discussed above. Figure 6-28 shows that low elevation zone with relatively wet soil moisture for
entire study period as compared to the other two zones and it also matches to the situation observed
during the field work. During field work it was observed that flooding water was stored in the lower
part of the catchment, because of the plainness of the lower part of the catchment. Therefore, from the
results obtained it seems logical to use potential temperature for undulating topography to simulate
surface soil moisture if there is no sufficient sample points on the high elevated areas. Most
64
importantly, it is interesting to see that the spatial mean of soil moisture at low elevation zone is
almost equal before and after the local correction is made but the spatial mean of soil moisture at high
elevation area after local correction is lower than before local correction as can be seen in Table 6-9.
The similarity of low elevation soil moisture simulated before and after local elevation correction
shows that the methods applied for this study gives plausible result for areas where sufficient training
points or sample points are observed. An other important observations from Figure 6-28 is that in low
elevation area still the spatial variability of temporal mean soil moisture is higher than the variability
of high elevation area due to high vertical flow i.e high potential evapotranspiration and high drainage
conditions in low elevation area.
0.4
-3
Soil moisture (cmcm )
0.45
0.35
0.3
Low elevation zone
29-09-08
27-09-08
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
0.2
20-09-08

High elevation zone
0.25
Date
Figure 6-28 Average Soil moisture at 3 elevation zones simulated after elevation correction
Table 6-9 Spatial average soil moisture before and after local correction
Day
18-09-08
19-09-08
20-09-08
22-09-08
23-09-08
24-09-08
25-09-08
27-09-08
29-09-08
Mean
Soil moisture (cm3cm-3) before

correction
Low
Medium
High
elevation
elevation
elevation
0.391
0.38
0.393
0.42
0.47
0.455
0.402
0.393
0.387
0.407
0.401
0.394
0.363
0.36
0.408
0.38
0.38
0.384
0.386
0.366
0.385
0.329
0.345
0.379
0.35
0.364
0.395
0.381
0.384
0.398
Soil moisture (cm3cm-3)

After correction
Low
Medium
elevation
elevation
0.393
0.334
0.435
0.41
0.412
0.379
0.39
0.333
0.405
0.393
0.326
0.318
0.381
0.3332
0.373
0.364
0.385
0.378
0.389
0.360
High
elevation
0.356
0.424
0.33
0.341
0.352
0.341
0.34
0.342
0.351
0.353
In general soil moisture decreases spatially during the study period as can be seen from Figure 6-17,
as the land surface temperature increases Figure 6-16. Whereas, the soil moisture increases as the land
surface temperature decreases while the average NDVI is remaining almost constant during the study
period in Figure 6-16. The relation of soil moisture and LST is probably linked to the absence and
65
presence of rainfall. Therefore, the spatial variation of soil moisture during the study period could be
affected by rainfall.
6.8.
Discussion
The average volumetric soil moisture obtained from three different algorithms ranges from 0.35-0.45
cm3cm-3 for all days as shown in Table 6-6. The average NDVI is between 0.53-0.68 and the average
LST obtained by using split window technique proposed for this study is between 293.78 K- 299. 46
K where as the average LST from the product ranges from 296.24 K to 301.96 K respectively as
shown in Table 6-1 and Table 6-2. The high soil moisture content, high NDVI and relatively low LST
indicate the study area is highly covered with vegetation and the study period is rainy season. And
also, the range of spatial variability of soil moisture, NDVI and LST are relatively low. This spatial
uniformity of NDVI makes the triangle (formed by the scatter plots of NDVI and LST) difficult to
visualize the cold and warm edge easily for some of the field days. This poor formation of the triangle
makes the approach subjective to determine the wet and warm edge of the triangle and also the
determination of minimum and maximum pixel values of the parameters. To overcome problem of the
full spectral coverage a large size image and also soil moisture pattern out side the study area was
taken as shown in Figure 3-1.
The error associated due to the accuracy of measuring soil moisture and error due to accuracy and
precision of remote sensing data of land surface parameter will propagate the error in the soil moisture
estimation at high resolution. To estimate these errors, a system of polynomial equation 4.12 was set
up using ground observed soil moisture, NDVI and LST for the study area. The error is estimated as
the RMSE between the grounds observed soil moisture and the simulated soil moisture using the
algorithms developed. For this particular catchment RMSE of 0.045 is calculated for all algorithms.
To estimate the second error associated with data accuracy, a sensitivity analysis is done by changing
the values of NDVI and LST by 5% increasing and decreasing their value. The result shows both
increase and decrease of two parameters increases RMSE to 6.5 and 2.9 in the 3rd and 2nd order
polynomial relation respectively. The high difference of RMSE value with two algorithms from
sensitivity analysis is presumably from the difference of number of coefficients. This means that
scaling of NDVI and LST as well as reducing the number of coefficients can minimize the errors
occurred due to data accuracy.
According to the statistical spatio-temporal analysis the high elevated area resembles high mean soil
moisture before correction, low coefficient of variability and time stable condition. However, the real
situation observed during the field work is that low elevated area is wetter than the high elevated area.
This discrepancy is coming from the insufficient number of sample points from the high elevated area
and local factors like back flow of water from the lake that forms artificial pond of water downstream
of the catchment that could not account with the algorithm. Less number of sampling points on high
elevated area induces an error on the algorithms developed. Sufficient number of sample points were
taken at low elevation area and based on the coefficient of determination (R2 >0.70) was obtained
from the results before and after correction was made. From this, one can conclude that the triangle
method with LST can simulate soil moisture with better accuracy when sufficient number of sample
points are taken and when there is no large elevation difference.
66
An effort is made to correct soil moisture simulation at high elevation area where there was no
sufficient training sample points. From the results obtained it is possible to minimize the errors
occurred at high elevated area coming due to less training sample points and due to large elevation
difference by applying elevation correction technique.
From Figure 6-26, one can observe that the rate of decreasing soil moisture at the high elevated zone
is lower than the other two zones during the period when there is no rainfall; consequently the soil
moisture becomes higher than the other two zones for the last 5 days of the study period. This low
decreasing rate of soil moisture is due to the effect of topography, the type of land cover and soil
physical property. Obviously, if the land cover is covered by shallow rooted crops that consume less
water and the texture of soil is poorly drained then the soil moisture decreasing rate will be low. From
Figure 2-10 most of the high elevated areas are covered by a soil type Luvisols which is moderately
drained and the low elevation area is covered by Nithosols which is well drained soils from Table 2-2.
These different drainage conditions of soils will result different pattern of soil moisture variability
from high elevation area to low elevation area as can be seen from Figure 6-19 (b) and Figure 6-20.
This argument is supported by Grayson et al (1997), who showed that terrain attributes influence soil
moisture distributions after rainfall events while drier conditions resemble soil vegetation patterns.
In this study both temporal and spatial variability of soil moisture is observed in the catchment. Since
the study period is the rainy season, temporal and spatial variability of soil moisture was also due to
the vertical and lateral movement of water. The area near to the drainage line becomes wetter due to
lateral movement of surface runoff from uphill during rainfall, whereas, the area which has high LST
gets dry quicker than the area of low LST after rainy season due to high lateral movement either from
evaporation or due to high hydraulic conductivity of soils. From Figure 6-19(b) high temporal
coefficient of variation is observed at low elevated area probably due to high evapotranspiration and
due to the soil drainage condition.
Limitation of triangle method: - There are some limitations to this soil moisture estimation
approach. The time difference between the ground measurements and the Terra overpass could impact
the results. For this study ground measurements were taken based on the predicted MODIS overpass
time in the study area from (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/MissionControl/overpass.php) and this
predicted overpass has little shifts from the real overpass time of the satellite. Moreover, for the
cloudy worst case, it is difficult to derive soil moisture from MODIS land parameters, which operate
in the optical/IR bands. The most severe limitation of the triangle method is that identification of the
triangular shape in the pixel distribution requires a flat surface and a large number of pixels over an
area with a wide range of soil wetness and fractional vegetation cover. Although not of high
relevance, determination of the warm edge and the vegetation limits of bare soil and a full cover
requires some subjectivity (Carlson, 2007). The method does not clearly indicate the effects of land
cover and topography. Moreover, the method is site specific and needs sufficient ground observed soil
moisture samples for setting up a polynomial relation.
67
7. Conclusion and Recommendations

7.1.
Conclusion
Passive and active microwave sensors on board satellite platforms have shown the capability to
retrieve soil moisture of the surface layer under some topographic and vegetation cover conditions,
but the sensitivity of microwave emission and scattering to other factors than soil moisture, such as
soil roughness, vegetation physical and structural properties and surface temperature and their coarser
spatial and temporal resolution limits the applicability of the approach at a catchment scale.
An alternative approach based on optical and thermal remote sensing the triangle method has
recently been proposed and tested to estimate soil moisture at a resolution high enough to serve
applications such as distributed hydrological modelling. This approach is based on the relation of
ground measured soil moisture, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and land surface
temperature (LST) retrieved from remote sensing. The main advantages of this approach are
gives high spatial and temporal resolution of soil moisture
does not need a priori information of vegetation and soil
gives relatively better soil moisture estimate under high vegetation cover
it requires less number of input variables
The algorithms developed in the relations of observed soil moisture with scaled NDVI and scaled LST
simulates soil moisture with a good accuracy in low elevation areas where sufficient sample points
were taken and where the elevation differences are minimum. However, none of them has a capability
to minimize the errors of the simulated soil moisture at high elevation propagated from LST due to
large elevation differences and insufficient number of sample points.
Among the terrain controlling factors elevation is found to be the main terrain controlling factor that
affects soil moisture variability. To reduce the error due to elevation on the simulated soil moisture
using the algorithms developed, local elevation correction is made by replacing LST with potential
surface temperature. Applying potential temperature can minimizes the topographic effect that is
induced from LST on the simulated soil moisture; especially on high elevated areas where there were
no sufficient sampling points were taken.
The general conclusion of this study is that it is possible to simulate soil moisture using triangle
method at reasonably good spatial resolution because of the basis of relations of soil moisture with
land surface parameters of NDVI and LST, provided that the area covers a large number of pixels to
determine the triangle in the scatter plots. The technique is suitable for remote sensing soil moisture
estimation because it does not require a priori information about vegetation and roughness condition
of the surface and also it is not limited to pixels having NDVI > 0.4 unlike of most microwave remote
68
sensing techniques. The results obtained from this study suggest that the soil moisture estimation by
combining ground measured soil moisture and MODIS land parameters is accurate enough when it is
applied on the area where there are sufficient number of ground observed soil moisture for algorithm
development and less elevation differences.
The two important input variables that are required for the development of the algorithms are NDVI
and LST and from these two input variables LST is found the most sensitive parameter based on
sensitivity analysis done.
The algorithm developed using 3rd order polynomial relation is more accurate than 1st and 2nd order
polynomial relation. However, due to more number of coefficients the errors coming from the input
variables especially from the most sensitive parameter of LST results in larger error on the simulated
soil moisture than the 2nd order polynomial relation. Therefore, 2nd order polynomial algorithm gives
better result than the others by minimizing the errors associated from data accuracy.
For a catchment which has large elevation difference and when there was no sufficient soil sampling
points distributed over the area, the triangle method applied with LST introduce an error on high
elevated areas because of large variation of LST due to elevation. Therefore, in such condition
elevation correction technique should be improved or advocated. For this study, it is possible to
minimize the error due to elevation by applying a technique for elevation correction using potential
surface temperature. In this case, the algorithm developed by potential surface temperature could give
better result than the others for such topographically different catchment.
Soil moisture can be related to the terrain controlling factors like elevation, slope and aspect. High
elevations in the catchment are characterized by low mean soil moisture exhibiting low temporal
variability with soil moisture values that are time stable.
Based on the statistical analysis temporal coefficient of variation is higher than spatial coefficient of
variation during the study period. Also, the temporal variability among the pixels is more pronounced
than spatial variation of the catchment for each day. This is an indication of the difference of degree
of variation of soil moisture from high elevation area to low elevation area.
In general, soil moisture estimation from remote sensing is a difficult task due to terrain effects and
vegetation in mountainous region. Nevertheless, the spatial information afforded by remote sensing is
valuable for many applications. In this study it is possible to estimate soil moisture at 1km spatial
resolution and daily temporal resolution with better accuracy which can be used as an input for many
distributed hydrological models.
69
7.2.
Recommendation
The study was carried out during wet season with limited number of sample points due to
inaccessibility of the area and short period of field campaign. Therefore, to improve the algorithms
developed by relating soil moisture measured during wet season with the remote sensing retrieved
NDVI and LST during the study period the following points are recommended.
Further study is proposed to improve the algorithm by taking long duration of soil moisture
measurements both in dry and wet seasons at different locations on different land covers.
Terrain controlling factors should be assessed carefully by taking a representative transects of
soil moisture measurement in the catchment.
Spatial variability is expected due to lateral movement of surface water after rainfall and temporal soil
moisture variability is mostly due to vertical movement of water by evapotranspiration and downward
movement of water inside the soil. Therefore, detailed analysis of surface flow characteristics and
evapotranspiration of the catchment is recommended for better understanding of soil moisture and
physical land processes of the study area.
Topography and soil physical parameters have great impact on soil moisture. Therefore, the
application of elevation correction potential surface temperature and the effect of soil physical
properties should be carefully assessed for such rugged and high elevation different areas for soil
moisture studies.
70
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72
Annexes
Appendix-1 DEM hydro processing procedure
Legend
73
Appendix-2 Ground observed soil moisture data

Point Coordinates
East
North
351360
1309059
Elevation
(m)
1803
Date
16-09-08
Local
Time
5:20
ASM-Theta
(cm3cm-3)
0.511
ASMGM
Land cover
Harvested crop
350541
1308434
1805
16-09-08
6:00
0.503
Grass land and crop land
352153
1310231
1804
16-09-08
7:00
0.310
Rice
345654
1305637
1775
18-09-08
4:45
0.309
0.323
350545
1308438
1798
18-09-08
5:00
0.493
0.494
Grass land and Crop land
354418
1314894
1800
18-09-08
5:20
0.425
0.485
Grass land
351762
1305965
1814
19-09-08
4:25
0.437
0.417
Mixed
353028
1303372
1848
19-09-08
5:15
0.418
0.502
355749
1303337
1831
19-09-08
6:04
0.444
Mixed crops
Forest
Leafy forest
354572
1303094
1874
19-09-08
7:29
0.395
352773
1304648
1830
19-09-08
7:45
0.413
Grassland
346291
1306344
1845
20-09-08
3:00
0.360
343042
1300253
1898
20-09-08
3:27
0.353
Crop land (matured)
343060
1300258
1899
20-09-08
3:37
0.266
Maize crop
370574
1287203
2420
20-09-08
5:10
0.451
0.497
378817
1288195
2259
20-09-08
5:55
0.491
0.547
362114
1287680
2290
20-09-08
8:15
0.409
Cropland
357390
1316535
1817
22-09-08
3:42
0.506
Grassland
354415
1314856
1795
22-09-08
4:00
0.316
Grassland
357313
1316356
1818
22-09-08
4:55
0.324
Forest
357387
1316425
1818
22-09-08
5:15
0.325
Grassland
0.371
Bare land
Forest
Grass land
357390
1316535
1817
22-09-08
8:00
0.412
348223
1307649
1789
23-09-08
4:00
0.552
0.549
Rice
Grassland
356497
1315816
1827
23-09-08
8:40
0.494
0.435
Rice
366278
1320051
1846
24-09-08
4:45
0.253
0.225
Mixed (both Forest and Crop)
367799
1318549
1899
24-09-08
4:50
0.228
0.218
Crop
367855
1318249
1915
24-09-08
7:48
0.308
0.319
Forest
390083
1312576
2579
24-09-08
8:15
0.340
Cropland and Eucalyptus
395850
1309930
2614
24-09-08
9:25
0.397
Grassland (Grazing)
376598
1318174
2001
24-09-08
10:25
0.397
Bare land
352778
1304652
1800
25-09-08
4:10
0.424
355247
1314790
1847
25-09-08
5:25
0.248
357390
1316535
1817
25-09-08
5:50
0.412
354794
1313767
1861
25-09-08
9:30
0.202
0.182
Bush and shrubs

Bare land and grass
0.389
Bare land
Forest
346287
1306346
1881
26-09-08
4:28
0.359
0.303
351764
1305966
1842
26-09-08
5:30
0.511
0.528
Rice,Teff,Grassland
352771
1304652
1820
26-09-08
5:50
0.413
0.370
Bare land
353081
1303345
1889
26-09-08
6:35
0.411
0.364
Leafy forest
350666
1308760
1805
27-09-09
5:15
0.328
Grassland
348208
1307528
1810
27-09-10
5:30
0.397
Rice
345162
1301502
1992
27-09-11
5:55
0.317
Maize
350235
1293051
2076
27-09-12
6:30
0.367
Teff and Maize
356145
1287895
2445
27-09-13
7:00
0.304
Wheat
356100
1287853
2450
27-09-14
7:20
0.406
Forest
370674
1286977
2478
27-09-15
8:20
0.474
Forest
381100
1289305
2360
27-09-16
9:05
0.358
Mixed
74
354529
1314789
1795
29-09-08
5:00
0.354
Grassland
350675
1308749
1798
29-09-08
5:25
0.317
Grassland
351762
1305962
1805
29-09-08
5:50
0.445
Mixed cropland
352771
1304653
29-09-08
6:15
0.356
Bare land
353062
1303332
1843
29-09-08
6:35
0.420
Forest
348203
1307511
1805
29-09-08
7:05
0.329
Rice
Appendix-3 Techniques or methods used to measure soil moisture content
Methods
A3-1 Measurement of soil water pressure head
The basic instruments capable of measuring matric potential are sufficiently inexpensive and reliable
to be used in field scale monitoring programmes. However, each instrument has a limited accessible
water potential range. There are two widely used water potential measuring devices and they are listed
below.
Piezometer
A piezometer is a tube of a few cm inner diameters with a filter which is installed in a soil profile .If
the filter is below the groundwater table, a piezometer is partially filled with water. By determining
the height of the water level in a piezometer the pressure head in the groundwater near the filter can
be determined.
Tensiometer
Piezometers cannot be used to measure negative pressure heads in the vadose zone, because any
water in the tubes will be adsorbed by the soil. Negative pressure heads can be measured with socalled tensiometers. A tensiometer consists of a liquid-filled unglazed porous ceramic cup connected
to a pressure measuring device, such as a vacuum gauge, via a liquid filled tube. If the ceramic cup is
embedded in soil, the soil solution can flow into or out of the tensiometer through the very small pores
in the ceramic cup. Analogously to the situation discussed for piezometers, this flow continues until
the pressure potential of the liquid in the cup has become equal to the pressure potential of the soil
water around the cup.
The vacuum gauge does not indicate the pressure in the cup when there is a difference in height
between the two. The liquid in the tube between the cup and the vacuum gauge is at static equilibrium
and thus the pressure in this liquid increases linearly with depth. Therefore the pressure head of the
liquid in the cup is:
A3.1
h= hgauge +Z1+Z2
With z = 0 at the soil surface and without osmotic head, combination with Eq. A.1 gives for the
hydraulic head H:
A3.2
H =hgauge+Z1
While there is no resistance to flow in piezometers, so that they are always instantaneously at
equilibrium with the soil water at the lower, open end, this is not necessarily true for tensiometers.
A3-2 Measurement of soil water content
A3-2.1 Gravimetric and volumetric soil water content
The quantity of water in soil is expressed in two different units, as the volumetric water content (cm3
cm-3) and the gravimetric water content w (g g-1). Figure 2 defines the volumes and masses of solids,
water, air and pores in a soil. The volumetric water content is the volume of liquid water per volume
soil and is calculated as = Vw / Vtotal. The gravimetric water content is the mass of water per mass of
dry soil and equals w = Mw / Ms. As the density of the solid phase varies in natural soils, gravimetric
water contents are more difficult to conceive than volumetric water contents. Therefore volumetric
water contents are commonly used in applied soil physics and hydrology.
75
Figure A-1 Definition of volumes and masses with respect to solids, water, air, pores and total.
A3-2.2 Measurement by oven drying

This method is very straightforward. You weigh the moist soil sample, dry it to remove the water, and
reweigh it. The customary method of drying is to place the sample in an oven at 1050 C for 24 hrs. This
removes the inter particle water but not the water molecules trapped between clay layers (Gardner,
1986). To determine the volumetric water content from the weights, either the dry bulk density d (g
cm-3) or the volume of the soil sample should be known. Important disadvantages of this method are
that it is destructive (you can only measure once at the same place) and can not be automated. This
method will be applied for this case study because of its applicability, simplicity and accessibility.
Figure A-2, sampling soil moisture using the gravimetric technique. After the samples are collected in
sample cans, they are weighted, oven dried, and weighted again. Photograph by A. Robock.
A3-2.3 Measurement by Time Domain Reflectometry

In the past various non-destructive methods have been proposed based on nuclear radiation, e.g. the
gamma ray attenuation method and the neutron attenuation method (neutron probe). With these
methods a huge amount of soil water content data have been collected, but these methods had two
main disadvantages: the invisible danger of nuclear radiation and the need for site specific calibration.
These disadvantages were eliminated with Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR).
The technique of TDR can be explained as follows. The dielectric behavior of a material is
characterized by its permittivity. The relative permittivity, , of a non-conducting material is generally
introduced as the factor by which the capacitance of a plate capacitor increases when the vacuum or
air between the plates is replaced by that medium. Thus, per definition, for vacuum and air = 1.
Relative permittivities are also called dielectric constants, which name is misleading as varies with
frequency, temperature, water content, etc.
The volumetric water content of a soil can be determined indirectly by measuring its effective
permittivity, , if the () relationship for the particular soil and dielectric measuring equipment is
known.
The relation () was measured by Topp et al. (1980) for a number of soils (Topp equation):
= (- 530 +292- 5.52 +0.043 3) x10-4
76
The relative permittivity can be measured through the propagation velocity of the electromagnetic
waves travelling through the medium. Soil-specific calibration is necessary for very accurate results.
Theta Probe method

The Theta Probe is designed to measure volumetric soil water content (v) using a novel technique
that matches other methods, such as time-domain reflectometry (TDR) or capacitance measurement,
for accuracy and ease-of-use, whilst reducing the complexity and expense.
A simplified standing wave measurement is used to determine the impedance of a sensing rod array
and hence the volumetric water content of the soil matrix.
Installation and data capture
Input requirements are 5-15V DC with a current consumption of 19 to 23 mA. The output signal is 0
to 1 V DC that approximates to 0 to 0.5 m3m-3 volumetric water content.
Theta Probes can be used to make point measurements by simply inserting into the soil so that all of
the rods are fully covered and taking readings from the analogue output either using a meter or logger.
The probes can be permanently installed into the soil profile either by using extension tubes or by
excavation and back-filling, with periodic data being collected by data logger. As for all soil water
measuring devices, care should be taken to avoid air pockets, stones and channelling water directly
onto the probe rods.
Figure A-3, Theta probe device installation and operation (source MLURI technical note, 2nd Ed.)
This instrument will also be used in the field because of its easiness for handling and relatively
accurate than the others.
Appendix-4 ILWIS script to retrieve LST from MODIS
EM_31F1:=iff(EM_31F=0.49,?,EM_31F)
EM_32F1:=iff(EM_32F=0.49,?,EM_32F)
Tr:=band19/band2
Wc:=((0.02-LN(tr))/0.651)^2
wc1:=Wc/-21.22704
exp31:=EXP(-wc1)
tr31:=2.89798-(1.88366)*(exp31)
wc2:=Wc/-32.70639
exp32:=EXP(wc2)
tr32:=-3.59289+(4.60414)*(exp32)
bt31:=(band31+31.65677)/0.13787
bt32:=(band32+26.50036)/0.11849
A31:=0.13787*EM_31F1*tr31
B31:=0.13787*bt31+31.65677*tr31*EM_31F1-31.65677
77
C31:=(1-tr31)*(1+(1-EM_31F1)*tr31)*0.13787
D31:=(1-tr31)*(1+(1-EM_31F1)*tr31)*31.65677
A32:=0.11849*EM_32F1*tr32
B32:=0.11849*bt32+26.50036*tr32*EM_32F1-26.50036
C32:=(1-tr32)*(1+(1-EM_32F1)*tr32)*0.11849
D32:=(1-tr32)*(1+(1-EM_32F1)*tr32)*26.50036
LST_F:=(C32*(B31+D31)-C31*(D32+B32))/(C32*A31-C31*A32)
EM_31F= Emissivity map of MODIS band31 from the product
EM_31F1= Emissivity map of MODIS band 31 after removing cloud affected pixels. The pixel value of 0.49 is
the cloud pixels. 0.49 is due to the offsets.
EM_32F= Emissivity map of MODIS band32 from the product
EM_32F1= Emissivity map of MODIS band 32 after removing cloud affected pixels. The pixel value of 0.49 is
the cloud pixels. 0.49 is due to the offsets.
Tr= transmittance map from MODIS band 19 and band 2. Band 19 and Band 2 are absorption and atmospheric
window bands.
Wc= Water vapour content map obtained from transmittance map
tr31= Transmittance of MODIS band 31
tr32= Transmittance of MODIS band 32
band31= radiance map at band31 pre-processed from raw images of MODIS MOD021KM using scale factor
0.002
band32= radiance map at band32 pre-processed from raw images of MODIS MOD021KM using scale factor
0.002
bt31= Brightness temperature map at band31 from the linear relation of radiance at sensor level and brightness
temperature.
bt32= Brightness temperature map at band32 from the linear relation of radiance at sensor level and brightness
temperature.
A31---D32= Coefficients for split window algorithm from equation 4.20
LST_F= Land surface temperature map from split window algorithm of MODIS band31/32.
78
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
300.1
304.3
0.397
0.397
300.4
300.3
0.340
0.248
301
0.308
295.1
301.6
0.228
0.424
303.2
0.253
302.5
0.494
298.2
0.412
298.4
298.2
0.325
0.552
298.2
0.324
301.3
0.409
298.2
300
0.491
298.2
300.9
0.451
0.316
304.5
0.266
0.506
302.5
298
0.413
0.353
297.9
0.395
305.1
298.7
0.444
0.360
297.9
0.418
296.4
0.425
297.8
298.1
0.493
0.437
295
LST
0.309
OSM
0.676
0.367
0.634
0.665
0.662
0.686
0.686
0.676
0.639
0.585
0.717
0.791
0.791
0.755
0.552
0.618
0.687
0.631
0.678
0.678
0.638
0.686
0.693
0.683
0.688
0.699
0.475
0.466
0.435
NDVI
0.514
0.173
0.654
0.346
0.360
0.409
0.458
0.576
0.759
0.445
0.307
0.307
0.307
0.304
0.307
0.296
0.219
0.272
0.490
0.369
0.526
0.385
0.384
0.439
0.382
0.375
0.260
0.360
0.170
T*
0.713
0.016
0.563
0.641
0.633
0.693
0.693
0.668
0.551
0.397
0.648
0.779
0.779
0.716
0.357
0.533
0.728
0.569
0.703
0.703
0.589
0.874
0.885
0.869
0.877
0.895
0.494
0.481
0.436
NDVI*
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
a00
-1.931
-0.648
-2.456
-1.301
-1.352
-1.537
-1.722
-2.165
-2.852
-1.673
-1.153
-1.153
-1.153
-1.143
-1.153
-1.112
-0.823
-1.022
-1.840
-1.388
-1.976
-1.447
-1.441
-1.650
-1.436
-1.408
-0.975
-1.354
-0.638
-3.757
a10
4.160
0.469
6.730
1.888
2.038
2.634
3.306
5.227
9.072
3.123
1.482
1.482
1.482
1.458
1.482
1.380
0.755
1.165
3.778
2.149
4.355
2.335
2.317
3.038
2.300
2.212
1.061
2.045
0.454
15.748
a20
Appendix-5 Least square method of 2nd order polynomial relation algorithm
-0.525
-0.012
-0.414
-0.471
-0.466
-0.510
-0.510
-0.492
-0.406
-0.292
-0.477
-0.573
-0.573
-0.527
-0.263
-0.392
-0.536
-0.419
-0.517
-0.517
-0.434
-0.643
-0.651
-0.640
-0.646
-0.658
-0.363
-0.354
-0.321
-0.736
a01
0.482
0.000
0.300
0.389
0.380
0.456
0.456
0.424
0.288
0.150
0.399
0.576
0.576
0.485
0.121
0.269
0.503
0.307
0.468
0.468
0.329
0.725
0.743
0.717
0.730
0.759
0.231
0.219
0.181
0.948
a02
4.151
0.031
4.165
2.512
2.578
3.211
3.597
4.359
4.738
2.002
2.252
2.706
2.706
2.465
1.240
1.785
1.805
1.753
3.895
2.938
3.508
3.811
3.844
4.324
3.796
3.796
1.450
1.961
0.838
11.321
a11
4.744
0.000
4.778
1.737
1.831
2.839
3.563
5.233
6.182
1.104
1.397
2.017
2.017
1.673
0.423
0.877
0.897
0.846
4.179
2.378
3.389
3.999
4.070
5.148
3.967
3.969
0.579
1.059
0.194
35.293
a22
-2.578
0.000
-2.042
-1.401
-1.422
-1.939
-2.172
-2.537
-2.275
-0.692
-1.272
-1.836
-1.836
-1.536
-0.385
-0.828
-1.144
-0.869
-2.383
-1.798
-1.800
-2.901
-2.964
-3.274
-2.900
-2.958
-0.623
-0.821
-0.319
-9.859
a12
-8.826
-0.022
-11.266
-3.598
-3.837
-5.432
-6.820
-10.391
-14.879
-3.689
-2.859
-3.435
-3.435
-3.103
-1.574
-2.186
-1.636
-1.973
-7.894
-4.491
-7.633
-6.072
-6.101
-7.858
-6.001
-5.887
-1.557
-2.924
-0.589
-46.840
a21
0.276
0.418
0.395
0.354
0.350
0.321
0.299
0.258
0.469
0.632
0.369
0.383
0.383
0.373
0.492
0.393
0.422
0.389
0.286
0.339
0.339
0.407
0.417
0.405
0.410
0.425
0.402
0.432
0.400
SSM
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.002
0.000
0.000
0.005
0.000
0.001
0.006
0.002
0.003
0.004
0.003
0.000
0.000
0.005
0.004
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.002
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.004
0.008
SE
79
80
29-09-08
27-09-08
26-09-08
300.9
302.7
304.3
307.3
0.420
0.329
300.5
0.358
0.356
294.4
0.474
0.445
299.7
0.406
305.6
299.7
0.304
0.317
301.8
0.367
304
302.2
0.317
0.354
298.6
301.1
0.411
0.397
297
0.413
302.7
297.2
0.511
0.328
298
302.1
0.202
0.359
296.5
0.412
0.672
0.713
0.652
0.660
0.631
0.626
0.668
0.425
0.672
0.672
0.576
0.623
0.663
0.615
0.740
0.578
0.761
0.699
0.681
0.657
0.540
0.372
0.278
0.179
0.442
0.351
0.351
0.002
0.306
0.306
0.427
0.445
0.243
0.478
0.537
0.278
0.291
0.339
0.619
0.264
0.828
0.889
0.798
0.810
0.766
0.759
0.754
0.246
0.762
0.762
0.562
0.660
0.743
0.643
0.802
0.557
0.834
0.740
0.725
0.670
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
0.600
-2.031
-1.397
-1.045
-0.673
-1.662
-1.320
-1.318
-0.009
-1.152
-1.152
-1.604
-1.672
-0.915
-1.796
-2.020
-1.046
-1.093
-1.275
-2.327
-0.992
4.600
2.176
1.219
0.505
3.083
1.942
1.937
0.000
1.479
1.479
2.869
3.118
0.934
3.596
4.550
1.219
1.333
1.813
6.040
1.097
-0.609
-0.654
-0.587
-0.596
-0.564
-0.558
-0.555
-0.181
-0.561
-0.561
-0.413
-0.485
-0.547
-0.473
-0.590
-0.410
-0.613
-0.544
-0.533
-0.493
0.649
0.749
0.603
0.621
0.557
0.546
0.539
0.058
0.551
0.551
0.299
0.413
0.524
0.392
0.610
0.294
0.659
0.519
0.498
0.426
5.064
3.741
2.512
1.641
3.837
3.016
2.993
0.006
2.644
2.644
2.713
3.323
2.049
3.479
4.879
1.754
2.746
2.841
5.080
2.003
7.061
3.855
1.738
0.741
4.055
2.505
2.466
0.000
1.925
1.925
2.027
3.041
1.156
3.332
6.555
0.847
2.076
2.223
7.107
1.105
-3.649
-2.897
-1.745
-1.157
-2.560
-1.993
-1.964
-0.001
-1.754
-1.754
-1.327
-1.909
-1.326
-1.948
-3.407
-0.850
-1.993
-1.831
-3.206
-1.170
-11.324
-5.754
-2.892
-1.215
-7.024
-4.383
-4.343
0.000
-3.352
-3.352
-4.791
-6.118
-2.064
-6.878
-10.850
-2.019
-3.306
-3.988
-13.017
-2.188
0.001
0.083
T.Sum
0.000
0.002
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.006
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.007
0.001
0.010
0.000
0.002
0.001
0.362
0.420
0.403
0.468
0.321
0.356
0.355
0.473
0.379
0.379
0.373
0.310
0.410
0.305
0.327
0.389
0.409
0.358
0.242
0.389
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
0.717
0.412 298.2
0.657
0.634
0.397 304.3
0.412 296.5
0.665
0.397 300.1
0.676
0.662
0.340 300.3
0.367
0.686
0.308 301
0.248 300.4
0.686
0.228 301.6
0.424 295.1
0.676
0.253 303.2
0.639
0.791
0.325 298.2
0.494 302.5
0.791
0.324 298.2
0.585
0.755
0.552 298.4
0.552
0.316 298.2
0.618
0.409 301.3
0.506 298.2
0.631
0.687
0.491 300
0.678
0.451 300.9
0.678
0.266 304.5
0.686
0.413 298
0.353 302.5
0.693
0.395 297.9
0.638
0.683
0.444 298.7
0.360 305.1
0.688
0.418 297.9
0.475
0.425 296.4
0.699
0.466
0.493 298.1
0.437 297.8
0.435
NDVI
0.309 295
OSM LST
0.264
0.514
0.173
0.654
0.346
0.360
0.409
0.458
0.576
0.759
0.445
0.307
0.307
0.307
0.304
0.307
0.296
0.219
0.272
0.490
0.369
0.526
0.385
0.384
0.439
0.382
0.375
0.260
0.360
0.170
T*
0.670
0.713
0.016
0.563
0.641
0.633
0.693
0.693
0.668
0.551
0.397
0.648
0.779
0.779
0.716
0.357
0.533
0.728
0.569
0.703
0.703
0.589
0.874
0.885
0.869
0.877
0.895
0.494
0.481
0.436
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
NDVI* 1.39
a00
-1.80
-3.51
-1.18
-4.47
-2.37
-2.46
-2.80
-3.13
-3.94
-5.19
-3.04
-2.10
-2.10
-2.10
-2.08
-2.10
-2.02
-1.50
-1.86
-3.35
-2.53
-3.60
-2.63
-2.62
-3.00
-2.61
-2.56
-1.77
-2.46
-1.16
-6.84
a01
a10
a20
0.61 -3.35 2.39
2.32 -3.56 2.71
0.26 -0.08 0.00
3.75 -2.81 1.69
1.05 -3.20 2.18
1.13 -3.16 2.13
1.47 -3.46 2.56
1.84 -3.46 2.56
2.91 -3.34 2.38
5.05 -2.75 1.62
1.74 -1.98 0.84
0.83 -3.24 2.24
0.83 -3.89 3.23
0.83 -3.89 3.23
0.81 -3.57 2.72
0.83 -1.78 0.68
0.77 -2.66 1.51
0.42 -3.63 2.82
0.65 -2.84 1.73
2.10 -3.51 2.63
1.20 -3.51 2.63
2.42 -2.94 1.85
1.30 -4.36 4.07
1.29 -4.42 4.17
1.69 -4.34 4.02
1.28 -4.38 4.10
1.23 -4.47 4.26
0.59 -2.46 1.30
1.14 -2.40 1.23
0.25 -2.18 1.01
8.77 -4.99 5.32
a02
a22
-0.54
-0.99
-0.18
-2.22
-3.17
-0.79
-1.03
-1.31
-1.89
-1.89
-1.56
-0.40
-0.82
-0.84
-1.62
-1.71
-2.66
-3.33
0.00
5.44
-1.03
11.27 -4.44
0.08
11.31 -4.47
6.82
7.00
8.72
9.77
11.83 -4.89
12.86 -5.78
5.44
6.11
7.35
7.35
6.69
3.37
4.85
4.90
4.76
10.58 -3.91
7.98
9.52
10.35 -3.74
10.44 -3.81
11.74 -4.82
10.31 -3.71
10.31 -3.71
3.94
5.32
2.28
30.74 -33.01
a11
a12
-3.09
-6.81
0.00
-5.39
-3.70
-3.76
-5.12
-5.74
-6.70
-6.01
-1.83
-3.36
-4.85
-4.85
-4.06
-1.02
-2.19
-3.02
-2.30
-6.30
-4.75
-4.76
-7.66
-7.83
-8.65
-7.66
-7.81
-1.65
-2.17
-0.84
-0.98
-3.94
-0.01
-5.03
-1.61
-1.71
-2.43
-3.04
-4.64
-6.64
-1.65
-1.28
-1.53
-1.53
-1.39
-0.70
-0.98
-0.73
-0.88
-3.52
-2.00
-3.41
-2.71
-2.72
-3.51
-2.68
-2.63
-0.70
-1.31
-0.26
-26.04 -20.91
a21
Appendix-6 Least square method of 3rd order polynomial relation NDVI*algorithm
-0.13
-0.94
-0.04
-1.94
-0.29
-0.32
-0.48
-0.67
-1.33
-3.04
-0.61
-0.20
-0.20
-0.20
-0.20
-0.20
-0.18
-0.07
-0.14
-0.82
-0.35
-1.01
-0.40
-0.39
-0.59
-0.39
-0.37
-0.12
-0.33
-0.03
-6.96
a30
a23
a30
0.45
3.54
0.00
5.74
0.97
1.08
1.73
2.44
4.67
8.81
1.28
0.68
0.82
0.82
0.74
0.38
0.50
0.28
0.42
3.01
1.29
3.13
1.82
1.83
2.69
1.79
1.72
0.32
0.82
0.08
-0.36
-3.01
0.00
-3.85
-0.74
-0.81
-1.43
-2.02
-3.72
-5.79
-0.61
-0.53
-0.76
-0.76
-0.63
-0.16
-0.32
-0.24
-0.28
-2.53
-1.08
-2.20
-1.90
-1.93
-2.79
-1.87
-1.84
-0.19
-0.47
-0.04
-0.18
-0.22
0.00
-0.11
-0.16
-0.15
-0.20
-0.20
-0.18
-0.10
-0.04
-0.16
-0.28
-0.28
-0.22
-0.03
-0.09
-0.23
-0.11
-0.21
-0.21
-0.12
-0.40
-0.42
-0.39
-0.40
-0.43
-0.07
-0.07
-0.05
36.53 -43.56 -0.60
a13
a31
-0.11
-0.26
0.00
-0.16
-0.13
-0.13
-0.19
-0.21
-0.24
-0.18
-0.04
-0.12
-0.20
-0.20
-0.15
-0.02
-0.06
-0.12
-0.07
-0.23
-0.18
-0.15
-0.36
-0.37
-0.40
-0.36
-0.37
-0.04
-0.06
-0.02
-1.38
a33
SSM
1.03
4.72
0.00
3.75
1.55
1.62
2.74
3.44
4.87
4.75
0.61
1.26
2.19
2.19
1.67
0.21
0.65
0.91
0.67
4.09
2.33
2.78
4.87
5.02
6.24
4.85
4.95
0.40
0.71
0.12
0.11
1.01
0.00
1.02
0.22
0.24
0.47
0.66
1.17
1.50
0.11
0.16
0.28
0.28
0.21
0.03
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.83
0.36
0.61
0.78
0.80
1.14
0.77
0.77
0.04
0.11
0.01
0.39
0.25
0.43
0.40
0.37
0.37
0.31
0.28
0.24
0.49
0.57
0.38
0.37
0.37
0.37
0.47
0.43
0.41
0.41
0.26
0.34
0.35
0.41
0.43
0.42
0.41
0.44
0.42
0.47
0.36
49.20 20.45 0.00
a32
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.001
0.000
0.003
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.002
0.003
0.003
0.002
0.000
0.006
0.002
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.003
SE
81
82
29-09-08
27-09-08
26-09-08
0.652
0.713
0.672
0.420 304.3
0.329 307.3
0.668
0.358 300.5
0.66
0.425
0.474 294.4
0.356 302.7
0.672
0.406 299.7
0.445 300.9
0.672
0.304 299.7
0.631
0.576
0.367 301.8
0.626
0.623
0.317 302.2
0.317 305.6
0.663
0.354 304
0.615
0.74
0.411 301.1
0.397 298.6
0.578
0.413 297
0.328 302.7
0.761
0.511 297.2
0.681
0.699
0.202 302.1
0.359 298
0.619
0.540
0.372
0.278
0.179
0.442
0.351
0.351
0.002
0.306
0.306
0.427
0.445
0.243
0.478
0.537
0.278
0.291
0.339
0.725
0.828
0.889
0.798
0.810
0.766
0.759
0.754
0.246
0.762
0.762
0.562
0.660
0.743
0.643
0.802
0.557
0.834
0.740
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
1.386
-4.23
-3.70
-2.54
-1.90
-1.22
-3.03
-2.40
-2.40
-0.02
-2.10
-2.10
-2.92
-3.04
-1.66
-3.27
-3.68
-1.90
-1.99
-2.32
3.36 -3.62 2.79
2.56 -4.13 3.64
1.21 -4.44 4.21
0.68 -3.98 3.38
0.28 -4.04 3.49
1.72 -3.82 3.12
1.08 -3.79 3.06
1.08 -3.76 3.02
0.00 -1.23 0.32
0.82 -3.80 3.09
0.82 -3.80 3.09
1.60 -2.80 1.68
1.74 -3.29 2.32
0.52 -3.71 2.94
2.00 -3.21 2.20
2.53 -4.00 3.42
0.68 -2.78 1.65
0.74 -4.16 3.70
1.01 -3.69 2.91

-0.79
-1.94
-2.08
-2.34
-2.31
0.00
-1.80
-1.80
-1.90
-2.84
-1.08
-3.12
-1.63
-0.69
13.75 -6.61
10.16 -3.61
6.82
4.45
10.42 -3.79
8.19
8.12
0.02
7.18
7.18
7.37
9.02
5.56
9.44
13.25 -6.13
4.76
7.46
7.71
13.79 -6.65
-9.64
-7.65
-4.61
-3.06
-6.76
-5.26
-5.19
0.00
-4.63
-4.63
-3.51
-5.04
-3.50
-5.15
-9.00
-2.25
-5.27
-4.84
-8.47
-5.05
-2.57
-1.29
-0.54
-3.14
-1.96
-1.94
0.00
-1.50
-1.50
-2.14
-2.73
-0.92
-3.07
-4.84
-0.90
-1.48
-1.78
-5.81
-1.65
-1.10
-0.36
-0.15
-0.04
-0.60
-0.30
-0.30
0.00
-0.20
-0.20
-0.54
-0.61
-0.10
-0.76
-1.08
-0.15
-0.17
-0.27
4.77
1.67
0.63
0.17
2.42
1.20
1.19
0.00
0.80
0.80
1.59
2.12
0.39
2.56
4.55
0.44
0.75
1.06
6.29
-4.71
-1.77
-0.60
-0.16
-2.21
-1.09
-1.07
0.00
-0.73
-0.73
-1.07
-1.67
-0.35
-1.97
-4.35
-0.29
-0.75
-0.93
-5.43
-0.34
-0.42
-0.30
-0.32
-0.27
-0.26
-0.26
-0.01
-0.26
-0.26
-0.11
-0.17
-0.25
-0.16
-0.31
-0.10
-0.35
-0.24
-0.23
-0.42
-0.36
-0.20
-0.13
-0.28
-0.21
-0.21
0.00
-0.19
-0.19
-0.10
-0.18
-0.14
-0.18
-0.38
-0.07
-0.23
-0.19
-0.33
8.15
4.78
1.93
0.84
4.33
2.65
2.59
0.00
2.04
2.04
1.59
2.80
1.20
2.99
7.33
0.66
2.41
2.29
7.18
1.83
0.74
0.22
0.06
0.80
0.39
0.38
0.00
0.26
0.26
0.28
0.52
0.12
0.59
1.64
0.08
0.29
0.32
1.85
0.004
0.065
sum
0.000
0.002
0.001
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.005
0.002
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.008
0.000
0.011
0.000
0.001
0.39
0.43
0.40
0.47
0.29
0.34
0.34
0.47
0.37
0.37
0.41
0.31
0.41
0.31
0.32
0.41
0.40
0.35
0.23
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
19-09-08
18-09-08
0.676
0.686
0.686
0.662
0.665
0.634
0.253 303.22
0.228 301.64
0.308 300.98
0.340 300.32
0.397 300.14
0.397 304.26
0.585
0.717
0.412 298.2
0.639
0.791
0.325 298.2
0.494 302.46
0.791
0.324 298.2
0.552 298.36
0.755
0.618
0.409 301.28
0.316 298.16
0.687
0.491 300
0.552
0.631
0.451 300.88
0.506 298.2
0.678
0.266 304.5
0.686
0.413 297.96
0.678
0.693
0.395 297.94
0.353 302.5
0.683
0.444 298.7
0.638
0.688
0.418 297.92
0.360 305.1
0.699
0.475
0.425 296.44
0.437 297.82
0.466
0.493 298.08
NDVI
0.435
LST
0.309 294.98
SM
0.654 0.330
0.346 0.376
0.360 0.372
0.409 0.407
0.458 0.407
0.576 0.392
0.759 0.290
0.445 0.209
0.307 0.467
0.307 0.561
0.307 0.561
0.304 0.515
0.307 0.257
0.264 0.288
0.195 0.394
0.243 0.308
0.437 0.380
0.330 0.380
0.469 0.319
0.385 0.874
0.384 0.885
0.439 0.869
0.382 0.877
0.375 0.895
0.260 0.494
0.360 0.481
a00
a01
a02
a10
a20
a11
a22
a21
0.109 0.82 -2.50 4.51
0.141 0.82 -1.32 1.27
0.138 0.82 -1.38 1.37
0.166 0.82 -1.56 1.77
0.166 0.82 -1.75 2.22
0.154 0.82 -2.20 3.50
0.084 0.82 -2.90 6.08
0.044 0.82 -1.70 2.09
0.218 0.82 -1.17 0.99
0.315 0.82 -1.17 0.99
0.315 0.82 -1.17 0.99
0.266 0.82 -1.16 0.98
0.066 0.82 -1.17 0.99
0.083 0.82 -1.01 0.74
0.155 0.82 -0.75 0.40
0.095 0.82 -0.93 0.62
0.144 0.82 -1.67 2.02
0.144 0.82 -1.26 1.15
0.101 0.82 -1.80 2.33
0.764 0.82 -1.47 1.57
0.784 0.82 -1.47 1.55
0.756 0.82 -1.68 2.04
0.770 0.82 -1.46 1.54
0.800 0.82 -1.43 1.48
0.244 0.82 -0.99 0.71
0.231 0.82 -1.38 1.37

1.01
1.75
0.26
-0.67 0.08 4.45
-0.87 0.13 3.05
-0.85 0.12 3.10
-1.02 0.17 4.22
-1.02 0.17 4.73
-0.95 0.15 5.52
-0.52 0.04 3.97
-0.27 0.01 1.21
-1.34 0.30 4.17
-1.94 0.63 6.02
-1.94 0.63 6.02
-1.64 0.45 5.03
-0.41 0.03 1.26
-0.51 0.04 1.36
-0.96 0.15 1.89
-0.58 0.06 1.43
-0.89 0.13 3.93
-0.89 0.13 2.96
-0.63 0.07 2.97
1.28
0.60
0.62
1.16
1.45
1.98
1.02
0.09
1.13
2.35
2.35
1.64
0.10
0.12
0.23
0.13
1.00
0.57
0.57
-4.71 3.72 18.33 21.80
-4.83 3.91 18.73 22.74
-4.66 3.64 20.69 27.75
-4.75 3.77 18.33 21.78
-4.94 4.08 18.69 22.65
-1.50 0.38 3.94
-1.43 0.34 5.19
-1.17 0.23 2.01
-0.72
-0.64
-0.63
-1.04
-1.16
-1.26
-0.49
-0.08
-1.35
-2.80
-2.80
-1.98
-0.12
-0.17
-0.43
-0.20
-0.84
-0.63
-0.45
-20.75
-21.73
-23.16
-20.89
-22.15
-1.42
-1.77
-0.57
0.82 -3.83 10.56 -6.17 6.37 62.30 251.68 -92.25
0.190 0.82 -0.65 0.30
NDV* Fr
0.170 0.436
T*
Appendix-7 Least square method of 3rd order polynomial relation Fr algorithm

a03
a13
a23
-8.09
-2.94
-3.10
-4.81
-6.04
-8.86
-8.39
-1.50
-3.56
-5.14
-5.14
-4.26
-1.08
-1.00
-1.03
-0.97
-4.78
-2.72
-3.88
-19.66
-20.00
-25.30
-19.50
-19.51
-2.85
-5.21
-0.95
-1.87 3.40
-0.28 0.65
-0.31 0.72
-0.46 1.26
-0.64 1.78
-1.28 3.28
-2.92 4.09
-0.59 0.43
-0.19 0.70
-0.19 1.01
-0.19 1.01
-0.19 0.83
-0.19 0.21
-0.12 0.17
-0.05 0.13
-0.10 0.15
-0.56 1.34
-0.24 0.58
-0.69 1.17
-0.38 4.86
-0.38 4.93
-0.57 7.13
-0.37 4.78
-0.35 4.69
-0.12 0.47
-0.31 1.20
-0.03 0.10
-0.29
-0.07
-0.08
-0.16
-0.23
-0.39
-0.26
-0.01
-0.12
-0.25
-0.25
-0.17
-0.01
-0.01
-0.02
-0.01
-0.15
-0.06
-0.09
-2.86
-2.97
-4.15
-2.84
-2.89
-0.09
-0.21
-0.02
-173.47 -6.69 111.35 -85.75
a12
a31
a32
a33
0.01 0.00 0.00
0.01 0.00 0.00
0.01 0.00 0.00
0.02 0.00 0.00
0.02 0.00 0.00
0.02 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.04 0.00 0.00
0.13 0.01 0.00
0.13 0.01 0.00
0.08 0.01 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.02 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.01 0.00 0.00
0.01 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
1.90 0.26 0.00
2.05 0.28 0.00
1.84 0.29 0.00
1.94 0.27 0.00
2.18 0.29 0.00
0.06 0.01 0.00
0.05 0.01 0.00
0.03 0.00 0.00
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
-0.04
-0.05
-0.08
-0.03
0.00
-0.04
-0.11
-0.11
-0.06
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
-0.03
-0.01
-0.01
-3.00
-3.20
-4.31
-3.00
-3.18
-0.03
-0.07
0.00
4.26 1.53 -0.04 -117.75
a30
0.36
0.40
0.39
0.34
0.30
0.25
0.51
0.51
0.39
0.37
0.37
0.38
0.44
0.43
0.41
0.43
0.34
0.40
0.38
0.42
0.42
0.36
0.42
0.44
0.40
0.35
0.37
0.00
SSM
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.02
0.00
SE
83
84
29-09-08
27-09-08
26-09-08
25-09-08
0.668
0.358 300.5
0.652
0.713
0.672
0.356 302.68
0.420 304.32
0.329 307.28
0.66
0.425
0.474 294.36
0.445 300.94
0.672
0.406 299.72
0.631
0.672
0.304 299.72
0.626
0.576
0.367 301.84
0.317 305.56
0.623
0.317 302.16
0.354 303.96
0.663
0.397 298.61
0.74
0.411 301.08
0.615
0.578
0.413 297
0.328 302.74
0.761
0.681
0.202 302.1
0.511 297.2
0.657
0.412 296.5
0.699
0.676
0.248 300.44
0.359 297.96
0.367
0.424 295.06
0.540 0.828
0.372 0.889
0.278 0.798
0.179 0.810
0.442 0.766
0.351 0.759
0.351 0.754
0.002 0.246
0.306 0.762
0.306 0.762
0.427 0.562
0.445 0.660
0.243 0.743
0.478 0.643
0.537 0.802
0.278 0.557
0.291 0.834
0.339 0.740
0.619 0.477
0.264 0.441
0.514 0.470
0.173 0.010
0.685 0.82 -2.07 3.08
0.790 0.82 -1.42 1.46
0.636 0.82 -1.06 0.82
0.655 0.82 -0.68 0.34
0.587 0.82 -1.69 2.07
0.576 0.82 -1.34 1.30
0.568 0.82 -1.34 1.30
0.061 0.82 -0.01 0.00
0.581 0.82 -1.17 0.99
0.581 0.82 -1.17 0.99
0.315 0.82 -1.63 1.92
0.435 0.82 -1.70 2.09
0.552 0.82 -0.93 0.63
0.413 0.82 -1.83 2.41
0.643 0.82 -2.06 3.05
0.310 0.82 -1.06 0.82
0.695 0.82 -1.11 0.89
0.547 0.82 -1.30 1.22
0.227 0.82 -2.37 4.05
0.195 0.82 -1.01 0.74
0.220 0.82 -1.97 2.79
0.000 0.82 -0.66 0.31
0.00 0.00
5.00
0.67
3.23
0.00
1.87
4.55
4.56
0.00
3.47
-4.22 2.99 23.06 34.49
-4.88 3.98 18.30 21.73
-3.92 2.58 11.03 7.88
-4.04 2.74 7.31
-3.62 2.19 16.18 16.97
-3.55 2.11 12.59 10.28
-3.50 2.05 12.41 9.99
-0.37 0.02 0.01
-3.58 2.15 11.09 7.97
-3.58 2.15 11.09 7.97
-1.95 0.63 8.39
-2.68 1.21 12.06 9.44
-3.41 1.94 8.38
-2.55 1.09 12.31 9.82
-3.97 2.63 21.53 30.05
-1.91 0.61 5.37
-4.29 3.07 12.60 10.29
-3.38 1.91 11.57 8.68
-1.40 0.33 8.78
-1.20 0.24 3.20
-1.36 0.31 7.06
0.00
-23.39
-21.42
-10.39
-7.09
-14.06
-10.73
-10.44
0.00
-9.53
-9.53
-3.92
-7.77
-6.85
-7.54
-20.49
-2.47
-12.96
-9.37
-2.96
-0.92
-2.30
0.00
-34.71
-18.95
-8.54
-3.64
-19.93
-12.31
-12.12
0.00
-9.46
-9.46
-9.97
-14.95
-5.68
-16.38
-32.22
-4.16
-10.21
-10.93
-15.14
-2.35
-10.10
0.00
0.00
-1.06 12.04
-0.34 4.52
-0.14 1.53
-0.04 0.42
-0.58 5.66
-0.29 2.78
-0.29 2.73
0.00
-0.19 1.86
-0.19 1.86
-0.52 2.73
-0.59 4.27
-0.10 0.89
-0.73 5.02
-1.04 11.12
-0.14 0.74
-0.16 1.91
-0.26 2.38
-1.59 6.02
-0.12 0.40
-0.91 3.33
-0.03 0.00
-6.35
-2.75
-0.75
-0.21
-2.56
-1.23
-1.19
0.00
-0.83
-0.83
-0.66
-1.43
-0.38
-1.60
-5.50
-0.18
-1.02
-1.00
-1.05
-0.06
-0.57
0.00
1.37 0.27 0.00
2.10 0.28 0.00
1.10 0.11 0.00
1.20 0.08 0.00
0.86 0.14 0.00
0.81 0.10 0.00
0.78 0.10 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.83 0.09 0.00
0.83 0.09 0.00
0.13 0.02 0.00
0.35 0.06 0.00
0.72 0.06 0.00
0.30 0.05 0.00
1.13 0.22 0.00
0.13 0.01 0.00
1.43 0.15 0.00
0.70 0.09 0.00
0.05 0.01 0.00
0.03 0.00 0.00
0.05 0.01 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00
-5.97
-2.99
-0.65
-0.19
-2.06
-0.97
-0.93
0.00
-0.66
-0.66
-0.29
-0.86
-0.29
-0.91
-4.86
-0.08
-0.97
-0.75
-0.33
-0.02
-0.17
0.00
0.00
0.11
Sum
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.34
0.44
0.40
0.46
0.38
0.37
0.36
0.47
0.37
0.37
0.28
0.31
0.36
0.30
0.41
0.38
0.43
0.36
0.21
0.41
0.22
0.44
SATELITE REMOTE SENSING FOR SOIL MOISTURE ESTIMATION: GUMARA CATCHMENT, ETHIOPIA
Appendix-8 NDVI map
85
Appendix-9 MODIS LST product and potential surface temperature
86
87
Appendix-10 Simulated soil moisture maps after elevation correction
88
25-09-08
24-09-08
23-09-08
22-09-08
20-09-08
319.92
318.97
0.397
0.397
316.48
323.34
0.340
0.412
319.59
0.308
318.16
319.59
0.228
0.248
321.45
314.53
0.253
315.91
316.83
0.412
0.494
316.83
0.325
0.552
315.85
0.324
323.21
0.409
315.71
321.16
0.491
0.316
324.69
0.451
315.85
324.09
0.266
0.506
324.09
315.66
0.413
0.353
315.63
0.395
323.85
314.7
0.444
0.360
315.61
0.418
0.425
315.39
313.89
0.493
0.437
315.65
0.309
18-09-08
19-09-08
312.98
OSM
Date
0.392
0.292
0.292
0.494
0.310
0.259
0.280
0.184
0.686
0.686
0.662
0.665
0.634
0.676
0.657
0.252
0.791
0.676
0.247
0.755
0.078
0.252
0.552
0.159
0.299
0.618
0.639
0.188
0.687
0.585
0.379
0.631
0.289
0.347
0.678
0.717
0.347
0.678
0.289
0.334
0.638
0.791
0.148
0.145
0.688
0.686
0.135
0.699
0.146
0.116
0.475
0.693
0.198
0.466
0.102
0.073
0.435
0.683
NDVI
0.760
0.792
0.694
0.745
0.740
0.780
0.780
0.763
0.616
0.487
0.717
0.809
0.809
0.764
0.512
0.578
0.742
0.609
0.721
0.721
0.625
0.711
0.736
0.700
0.718
0.758
0.497
0.484
0.439
NDVI*
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
a00
1.537
2.337
2.155
2.581
4.113
2.433
2.433
3.266
0.652
1.324
2.411
2.411
2.103
2.059
2.103
2.492
1.567
3.160
2.889
2.889
2.781
1.232
1.220
0.854
1.212
1.126
0.965
1.649
0.611
8.334
a10
-0.372
-0.859
-0.730
-1.047
-2.660
-0.931
-0.931
-1.678
-0.067
-0.276
-0.914
-0.914
-0.695
-0.667
-0.695
-0.976
-0.386
-1.570
-1.313
-1.313
-1.216
-0.239
-0.234
-0.115
-0.231
-0.199
-0.146
-0.428
-0.059
-10.92
a20
3.850
4.012
3.514
3.772
3.748
3.947
3.947
3.864
3.118
2.465
3.629
4.095
4.095
3.868
2.591
2.924
3.758
3.081
3.649
3.649
3.166
3.601
3.729
3.546
3.638
3.839
2.517
2.451
2.225
5.063
a01
Appendix-11 Least square method 2nd order relation with potential temperature
-1.826
-1.983
-1.521
-1.753
-1.730
-1.920
-1.920
-1.839
-1.197
-0.749
-1.623
-2.065
-2.065
-1.843
-0.827
-1.054
-1.740
-1.170
-1.641
-1.641
-1.235
-1.597
-1.713
-1.549
-1.630
-1.815
-0.780
-0.740
-0.610
-3.158
a02
-2.169
-3.435
-2.775
-3.567
-5.647
-3.519
-3.519
-4.624
-0.745
-1.196
-3.205
-3.616
-3.155
-2.918
-1.997
-2.670
-2.157
-3.568
-3.863
-3.863
-3.226
-1.625
-1.667
-1.109
-1.616
-1.583
-0.890
-1.481
-0.498
-15.46
a11
0.116
0.291
0.190
0.314
0.788
0.306
0.306
0.528
0.014
0.035
0.254
0.323
0.246
0.210
0.099
0.176
0.115
0.315
0.369
0.369
0.257
0.065
0.069
0.030
0.064
0.062
0.020
0.054
0.006
5.905
a22
0.336
0.554
0.392
0.542
0.852
0.559
0.559
0.719
0.093
0.119
0.468
0.596
0.520
0.454
0.208
0.314
0.326
0.442
0.567
0.567
0.411
0.236
0.250
0.158
0.237
0.245
0.090
0.146
0.045
3.150
a12
0.330
0.795
0.592
0.912
2.301
0.848
0.848
1.496
0.048
0.157
0.765
0.863
0.657
0.595
0.416
0.659
0.335
1.117
1.106
1.106
0.888
0.198
0.201
0.094
0.194
0.176
0.085
0.242
0.030
12.761
a21
0.377
0.288
0.392
0.327
0.337
0.298
0.298
0.307
0.490
0.454
0.360
0.266
0.279
0.333
0.472
0.440
0.392
0.381
0.338
0.338
0.401
0.445
0.429
0.483
0.442
0.424
0.434
0.468
0.324
SSM
0.001
0.002
0.000
0.005
0.000
0.000
0.005
0.003
0.000
0.010
0.003
0.003
0.002
0.000
0.001
0.001
0.010
0.005
0.005
0.000
0.002
0.001
0.001
0.002
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.000
SDE
89
90
29-09-08
27-09-08
322.61
320.37
325.46
0.356
0.420
0.329
322.522
0.358
320.84
317.64
0.474
0.445
325.85
0.406
323.56
323.85
0.304
0.317
322.96
0.367
324.85
321.85
0.317
0.354
323.09
0.397
319.95
321.64
0.202
0.328
0.106
0.344
0.713
0.672
0.370
0.668
0.210
0.109
0.425
0.652
0.548
0.672
0.128
0.441
0.672
0.66
0.393
0.576
0.255
0.334
0.623
0.631
0.400
0.663
0.315
0.323
0.615
0.626
0.383
0.681
0.687
0.757
0.353
0.764
0.764
0.604
0.230
0.753
0.753
0.550
0.649
0.734
0.632
0.772
0.801
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
-1.426
2.864
0.881
1.753
1.064
2.123
2.626
3.083
0.909
4.565
3.675
3.278
2.784
3.336
2.690
3.189
-1.289
-0.122
-0.483
-0.178
-0.709
-1.084
-1.495
-0.130
-3.277
-2.123
-1.690
-1.219
-1.750
-1.138
-1.599
3.479
3.833
1.786
3.867
3.867
3.058
1.167
3.811
3.811
2.783
3.286
3.715
3.201
3.907
4.054
-1.491
-1.810
-0.393
-1.842
-1.842
-1.152
-0.168
-1.789
-1.789
-0.954
-1.330
-1.700
-1.262
-1.881
-2.025
-3.650
-1.237
-1.147
-1.507
-3.008
-2.942
-1.318
-1.269
-6.374
-3.747
-3.947
-3.789
-3.912
-3.851
-4.736
0.329
0.038
0.033
0.056
0.224
0.214
0.043
0.040
1.004
0.347
0.385
0.355
0.378
0.366
0.554
0.511
0.191
0.082
0.235
0.468
0.362
0.062
0.195
0.978
0.420
0.522
0.566
0.504
0.606
0.773
1.035
0.108
0.199
0.159
0.633
0.765
0.402
0.114
2.882
1.364
1.282
1.045
1.293
1.026
1.496
0.001
0.084
Sum
0.001
0.002
0.000
0.000
0.004
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.001
0.000
0.000
0.001
0.001
0.006
0.362
0.455
0.404
0.427
0.329
0.421
0.351
0.454
0.373
0.338
0.360
0.331
0.361
0.300
0.280

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Satellite Remote Sensing for Soil Moisture

Estimation: Gumara Catchment, Ethiopia

Dagnenet Fenta Mekonnen

Satellite remote sensing for soil moisture estimation:

Thesis Assessment Board

Prof. Dr. Ing. Wout Verhoef

WREM Departement, ITC, Enschede

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION

Description of study area .................................................................................................... 5

Climate setting of the study area................................................................................. 5

Field work and materials used .......................................................................................... 13

Soil moisture measurement....................................................................................... 13

Results, analysis and discussion ....................................................................................... 45

6.2.1. NDVI ..............................................................................................................45

Conclusion and Recommendations...................................................................................68

Relevance of the study

Objective of the study

2. Description of study area

Climate setting of the study area

Figure 2-4 Daily maximum temperature at three stations (2003-2007)

Figure 2-5 Daily minimum temperatures at three stations (2003-2007)

Figure 2-6 Daily average temperatures for three stations (2003-2007)

Major Soil Groups

Figure 2-10 Major soil groups according to the FAO classification

Figure 2-11 Land cover map of the Gumara catchment

3. Field work and materials used

Soil moisture measurement

Air and surface temperature measurements

MODIS LST product

Air temp. (Sonic Anemometer)

Date /Time (UTC+3:00)

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiameter (MODIS) is a 36-band Spectro-radiometer

Figure 3-5 Terra satellite-right and Aqua-left

Band No. Band width

Acquiring of MODIS image

Table 3-2 General descriptions of MODIS level 1 raw data

Data Product Description

4. Literature review about remote sensing and

Remote sensing of soil moisture

Natural gamma radiation

Bare soil only; cloud

All weather; high

Gamma radiation techniques

(100 + 1.1Mo) 100

Reflected solar techniques

TB = t (H ) rTsky + (1 r )Tsoil + Tatm

Soil moisture quantification using the triangle method

Previous studies of soil moisture using the triangle method

T *i Fr j was proposed and the obtained

General approach of the triangle method

Soil moisture can be measured using both

NDVI can be calculated using equation 5.2

Graphic visualization of the NDVI/LST

The set up can be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order

Coefficients can be calibrated using least

Spatially map soil

Using GIS packages and the equations

NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index)

Step I File format conversion

Step II Conversion of raw DN value to reflectance value

Non-linearities in the analogue to digital converters

Angular variations of the scan mirror reflectance

cos() = reflectance_scales(S I reflectance_offsets)

Step III Atmospheric correction

M = a 00 + a10 N * + a 20 N * 2 + a 01T * + a 02T 2 + a11 N T * + a12 N * T *2

M = a 00 + a10 N * + a 20 N 2 + a 30 N 3 + a 01T * + a 02T 2 +... + a 23 N 2 T 3 + a 33 N 3 T *3

M = a 00 + a10 Fr + a 20 Fr + a30 Fr 3 + a01T * + a 02T 2 +... + a 23 Fr T 3 + a33 Fr T *3

M = a 00 + a10 N * + a 20 N * 2 + a 01 * + a 02 2 + a11 N * + a12 N * *2