Electromagnetic characterization of soil-litter media: application to the simulation of the microwave emissivity of the ground surface in forests

François Demontoux (1) , Jennifer Grant (2) , Heather Lawrence (1, 3) , Bénédicte Le Crom (1) , Gilles Ruffié (1) , Jean Pierre Wigneron (3) , Valery Mironov (4)

1 IMS - Laboratoire de l'intégration, du matériau au système
2 Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences
3 EPHYSE - Écologie fonctionnelle et physique de l'environnement
4 Radiophysics of remote sensing laboratory

In order to improve our knowledge of the emitted signal of forests at L-band (1.4 GHz) we focused this study on permittivity measurements of heterogenic natural media such as soil or litter consisting of plant debris and organic matter. This study was done in the context of the upcoming SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) satellite mission that will attempt to map surface soil moisture from L-band (1.4 GHz) passive microwave measurements. In the field of passive microwaves, very little information exists about the behaviour of the L-band signal of forests especially when litter is included in the soil-vegetation system. To date very few analyses have investigated the dielectric behaviour of the litter layer and its influence on the microwave emission of forests is generally neglected.

Mots clés: soil emissivity; moisture; dielectric properties; geophysical observations

Domaines: Electromagnétisme

François Demontoux, Jennifer Grant, Heather Lawrence, Bénédicte Le Crom, Gilles Ruffié, et al.. Electromagnetic characterization of soil-litter media: application to the simulation of the microwave emissivity of the ground surface in forests. European Physical Journal: Applied Physics, 2008, 44 (44), pp.303-315. ⟨10.1051/epjap:2008168⟩. ⟨hal-00345723⟩