Global Monitoring of Soil Moisture for Water Hazards Assessment

01.04.2009 - 31.12.2012
Forschungsförderungsprojekt
In the last few years significant progress towards operationalsoil moisture services based on spaceborne microwave sensors has been made. The first global soil moisture dataset derived from ERS-1/2 scatterometer measurements was released in 2002. The first near-real-time operational soil moisture service was started by EUMETSAT in May 2008 based on METOP ASCAT, which is the successor instrument of the ERS-1/2 scatterometer. Austria has made important contributions to these developments. The algorithms for retrieving soil moisture from the C-band scatterometers on board of ERS-1/2 and METOP have been developed by TU Wien. Within EUMETSAT’s Satellite Application Facility in Support to Operational Hydrology and Water Management (Hydrology SAF) the Austrian meteorological service (ZAMG) coordinates the soil moisture activities and is responsible for building up operational services for value-added METOP ASCAT soil moisture products. The overall goal of the proposed project is to advance the use of soil moisture services based on METOP ASCAT and complementary satellite systems, most importantly SMOS and ENVISAT ASAR, by extending the Hydrology SAF products to Africa and Australia, carrying out extensive calibration and validation(Cal/Val) activities and by developing novel water hazards applications. The considered applications are weather forecasting, drought and yield monitoring, hydrologic prediction, epidemiological modelling, climate change, desertification monitoring and societal risks assessment.

Personen

Projektleiter_in

Projektmitarbeiter_innen

Institut

Förderungsmittel

  • FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH (National) Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft mbH (FFG)

Forschungsschwerpunkte

  • Computational Science and Engineering
  • Energy and Environment

Schlagwörter

DeutschEnglisch
Bodenfeuchtesoil moisture
Hochwasserflood
Dürrendroughts