**Remote Sensing of Regional Soil Moisture**

Common and key statements from the editors are

i) More diverse information about local conditions should be utilized to increase the accuracy of soil moisture retrieved by any method.

ii) Thermal infrared-based methods have a better spatial resolution than passive microwave observations, which makes them better suited for regional-scale analyses.

iii) With the current state-of-the-art in remote sensing of soil moisture, the data, methods and software are available to conduct regional-scale soil moisture monitoring. The most limiting factors are the lack of regional knowledge (or its use) and technical resources.
