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Advanced Microwave Remote Sensing Technologies for Hydrology

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Remote Sensing in Geology, Geomorphology and Hydrology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 June 2024 | Viewed by 3085

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
Interests: microwave remote sensing; radar; electromagnetics; earth observation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microwave remote sensing has emerged as a valuable tool for hydrological applications due to its numerous advantages, including all-weather and day-night capabilities, the ability to penetrate clouds and vegetation, and sensitivity to surface water properties like soil moisture and water content. The information obtained from microwave remote sensing plays a crucial role in various aspects of water resource management, flood forecasting, drought monitoring, and climate studies. Recent advancements in microwave remote sensing have further expanded its utility in hydrology. One notable development is the use of signal of opportunity, which repurposes existing microwave transmit signals to extract geophysical parameters from reflected signals. For instance, global navigation satellite systems-reflectometry (GNSS-R) is an emerging remote sensing technique that leverages navigation signals to map global soil moisture fields, vegetation characteristics, and has shown promise for applications such as tropical wetland mapping and operational flood mapping. Another significant mission is the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, successfully launched in 2022, which aims to measure river width, slope, water level, and discharge. The data from this mission will significantly improve our understanding of surface water dynamics. Moreover, advancements in passive radiometer technology have led to higher resolution, enabling its application in hydrology with increased accuracy.

Additionally, the progress in computational processing power and infrastructure, particularly with online cloud computing, has made high-performance computing accessible and affordable to a wide range of users. These developments have facilitated widespread access to hydrological data and analysis tools.

In alignment with the advancements mentioned above in microwave remote sensing technology for hydrological applications, this Special Issue aims to gather studies that utilize such data from diverse sources, including ground-based experiments, airborne data acquisition, and space-borne microwave satellite products. By leveraging the capabilities of microwave remote sensing, researchers have the opportunity to delve into various aspects of hydrology. In this context, we invite articles that address the following areas, but not restricted to:

  • Soil moisture monitoring;
  • Surface water monitoring;
  • Snow depth and snow water equivalence estimation;
  • Wetland monitoring;
  • Groundwater monitoring;
  • Precipitation estimation;
  • Climate study;
  • Data assimilation and modeling;
  • Advancement in algorithms (data fusion, machine learning).

This Special Issue is directly relevant to the scope of the journal, with a particular focus on physical modeling and signatures, data assimilation, data fusion, and remote sensing applications, especially in the context of hydrology. The articles included in this issue will contribute to a deeper understanding of the physical processes, facilitate the assimilation of data into hydrological models, explore data fusion techniques, and demonstrate the practical applications of remote sensing technology in addressing hydrological challenges.

Dr. Xiaolan Xu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soil moisture
  • snow water equivalence
  • Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission
  • GNSS -R
  • SoOP (signals of opportunity)
  • precipitation
  • wetland
  • machine learning
  • SAR

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 10975 KiB  
Article
Mapping Erosion Hotspots: Coherent Change Detection in the Quilpie Region, Queensland, Australia
by Kyran Cook, Armin Agha Karimi, Alistair Grinham and Kevin McDougall
Remote Sens. 2024, 16(7), 1263; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16071263 - 03 Apr 2024
Viewed by 551
Abstract
Erosion is a powerful force that has moulded the Earth ever since water has been present on its rocky surface. In its seemingly harmless pursuit, erosion threatens ecosystems, reduces agricultural production, and impacts water quality. When trying to investigate erosion, there is no [...] Read more.
Erosion is a powerful force that has moulded the Earth ever since water has been present on its rocky surface. In its seemingly harmless pursuit, erosion threatens ecosystems, reduces agricultural production, and impacts water quality. When trying to investigate erosion, there is no easy way to identify hotspots, only leaving the possibility of predicting where erosion should be occurring. This study aimed to develop a method to identify erosion using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images in a process called Coherent Change Detection (CCD). In doing so, it was found that CCD can be used to identify erosion due to rain events; however, false positives were also found due to soil moisture changes. This study used a new method for removing soil moisture effects that utilised the drying out of the soil to map where changes had occurred. This helped limit false positives, but more work is required to ensure soil moisture does not interfere with the results. Field data comprising aerial imagery and soil sampling were collected to improve the SAR processing as well as validate the results. The results of this study indicate the feasibility of developing an erosion analysis system capable of providing near real-time data specifically for arid regions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Microwave Remote Sensing Technologies for Hydrology)
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21 pages, 2546 KiB  
Article
Estimation of Rainfall via IMERG-FR and Its Relationship with the Records of a Rain Gauge Network with Spatio-Temporal Variation, Case of Study: Mexican Semi-Arid Region
by Eric Muñoz de la Torre, Julián González Trinidad, Efrén González Ramírez, Carlos Francisco Bautista Capetillo, Hugo Enrique Júnez Ferreira, Hiram Badillo Almaraz and Maria Ines Rivas Recendez
Remote Sens. 2024, 16(2), 273; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16020273 - 10 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1081
Abstract
In the last few years, Satellite Precipitation Estimates (SPE) have been increasingly used for rainfall estimation applications. Their validity and accuracy are influenced by several factors related to the location where the SPEs are applied. The objective of this study is to evaluate [...] Read more.
In the last few years, Satellite Precipitation Estimates (SPE) have been increasingly used for rainfall estimation applications. Their validity and accuracy are influenced by several factors related to the location where the SPEs are applied. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of the Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement Version 06 Half-Hour Temporal Resolution (IMERG-FR V06 HH) for rainfall estimation, as well as to determine its relationships with the hourly and daily rain gauge network data in a semiarid region during 2019–2021. The methodology contemplates the temporality, elevation, rainfall intensity, and rain gauge density variables, carrying out a point-to-pixel analysis using continuous, (Bias, r, ME, and RMSE), categorical (POD, FAR, and CSI), and volumetric (VHI, VFAR, and VCSI) statistical metrics to understand the different behaviors between the rain gauge and IMERG-FR V06 HH data. IMERG-FR greatly underestimated the heavy rainfall events in values of −63.54 to −23.58 mm/day and −25.29 to −11.74 mm/30 min; however, it overestimates the frequency of moderate rain events (1 to 25 mm/day). At making the correlation (r) between the temporal scales, the monthly temporal resolution was the one that better relates the measured and estimated data, as well as reported r values of 0.83 and 0.85, where records at shorter durations in IMERG-FR do not detect them. The weakness of this system, according to the literature and confirmed by the research findings, in the case of hydrological phenomena, is that recording or estimating short durations is essential for the water project, and therefore, the placement of rain gauges. The 1902–2101 m.a.s.l. range elevation has the best behavior between the data with the lowest error and best detection ability, of which IMERG-FR tended to overestimate the rain at higher altitudes. Considering that the r for two automated rain gauges per IMERG-FR pixel density was 0.74, this indicates that the automated rain gauges versus IMERG-FR have a better data fit than the rain gauges versus IMERG-FR. The distance to centroid and climatic evaluations did not show distinctive differences in the performance of IMERG. These findings are useful to improve the IMERG-FR algorithms, guide users about its performance at semiarid plateau regions, and assist in the recording of data for hydrological projects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Microwave Remote Sensing Technologies for Hydrology)
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32 pages, 8640 KiB  
Article
Characterizing Snow Dynamics in Semi-Arid Mountain Regions with Multitemporal Sentinel-1 Imagery: A Case Study in the Sierra Nevada, Spain
by Pedro Torralbo, Rafael Pimentel, Maria José Polo and Claudia Notarnicola
Remote Sens. 2023, 15(22), 5365; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15225365 - 15 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1136
Abstract
Monitoring snowmelt dynamics in mountains is crucial to understand water releases downstream. Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) has become one of the most widely used techniques to achieve this aim due to its high frequency of acquisitions and all-weather capability. This work aims [...] Read more.
Monitoring snowmelt dynamics in mountains is crucial to understand water releases downstream. Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) has become one of the most widely used techniques to achieve this aim due to its high frequency of acquisitions and all-weather capability. This work aims to understand the possibilities of S-1 SAR imagery to capture snowmelt dynamics and related changes in streamflow response in semi-arid mountains. The results proved that S-1 SAR imagery was able not only to capture the final spring melting but also all melting cycles that commonly appear throughout the year in these types of environments. The general change detection approach to identify wet snow was adapted for these regions using as reference the average S-1 SAR image from the previous summer, and a threshold of −3.00 dB, which has been assessed using Landsat images as reference dataset obtaining a general accuracy of 0.79. In addition, four different types of melting-runoff onsets depending on physical snow condition were identified. When translating that at the catchment scale, distributed melting-runoff onset maps were defined to better understand the spatiotemporal evolution of melting dynamics. Finally, a linear connection between melting dynamics and streamflow was found for long-lasting melting cycles, with a determination coefficient (R2) ranging from 0.62 to 0.83 and an average delay between the melting onset and streamflow peak of about 21 days. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Microwave Remote Sensing Technologies for Hydrology)
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