Soil Moisture Modeling Based on Multiyear Observations in the Sahel.

Two simple soil moisture models useful for drought monitoring and climate change studies were proposed, based on 4-yr ground observations of root-zone soil moisture in Sahelian Niger. One is a water balance model that calculates soil moisture using daily precipitation and temperature; the other is a statistical model, a modified antecedent precipitation index calculated using only daily precipitation. Both models estimated seasonal and interannual variations in the observed soil moisture quantitatively well; the estimations correlated strongly (0.94) with the observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]