Assessment of Different Methods for Soil Moisture Estimation: A Review

Abstract

Importance of precise soil moisture information is well understood in various fields like agriculture, hydrology, meteorology, environmental studies etc. Soil moisture is very dynamic, both temporally and spatially, therefore its continuous monitoring is necessary. There are various methods available to retrieve soil moisture status. All these methods have their own advantages and disadvantages and should be used with caution depending upon the requirements and demand of the project. In this paper, an attempt has been made to evaluate different soil moisture estimation methods right from conventional methods like gravimetric soil moisture techniques to most advanced tools like Synthetic Aperture Radar Polarimetric (PolSAR) techniques. All these methods have not only been assessed individually but have also been compared and evaluated for their relative advantages and limitations. It is expected that this paper will be very useful for the researchers and managers looking for soil moisture information at different scales and different accuracies based upon their objectives, resources and needs.

Keywords: Soil moisture estimation, point measurement methods, optical, thermal, microwave remote sensing methods

Cite this Article
Pavan Kumar Sharma, Dheeraj Kumar, Hari Shanker Srivastava et al. Assessment of Different Methods for Soil Moisture Estimation: A Review. Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS. 2018; 9(1): 57–73p.