Estimation of Soil Moisture Content on Spectral Reflectance of Bare Soils in the 0.4 -2.5 µm Domain

S. Fabre (1) , A. Leasignoux (2) , X. Briottet (1)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Toulouse]
2 DomPas Internet Inc

The purpose of this paper is to define a method of soil moisture content estimation for bare soils based on spectral signature in the reflective domain. In a first time, this work consists in defining the most performant and robust methods existing in the literature. Two spectral indexes are then retained. In a second time, new methods are proposed to overcome the limitation of these selected indexes. Two spectral indexes and two global methods are then defined. The first method is based on a global method found in the literature and the second method is based on an existing empirical soil model. All these methods are compared on a reference database composed of spectral signature measured in laboratory and related soil moisture content. Finally, a simulation of a realistic case in order to analyse the impact of a given hyperspectral instrument specification and of the atmospheric water vapour content on the methods.

Mots clés: SOIL MOISTURE CONTENT; BARE SOIL; SPECTRAL REFLECTANCE; SPECTRAL INDEXES; SOIL REFLECTANCE MODEL

Domaines: Optique / photonique

S. Fabre, A. Leasignoux, X. Briottet. Estimation of Soil Moisture Content on Spectral Reflectance of Bare Soils in the 0.4 -2.5 µm Domain. Sensors, 2014, pp.1-18. ⟨10.3390/s150203262⟩. ⟨hal-01096413⟩