The Use of Geostatistics in Relating Soil Moisture to RADARSAT-1 SAR Data Obtained over the Great Basin, Nevada, USA

Block kriging is applied to geographically register digital images from the RADARSAT-1 satellite to soil moisture samples. Both satellite and soil moisture data are interpolated in this process to obtain precise registration. Median and adaptive Lee filtering of images are also used to correlate pixel values with soil moisture. A case study is presented using a playa in the western Great Basin, Nevada, of North America. A statistically significant correlation is found between interpolated RADARSAT-1 digital numbers and interpolated soil moisture. Results indicate that RADARSAT-1 is sensitive to median soil moisture levels; however, filtering does not significantly improve this sensitivity. The study results indicate the ability of synthetic aperture radar to delineate and map temporal soil moisture variability with the use of geostatistical methods to interpolate values over pixel areas.