PREPLANTING SOIL MOISTURE USING PASSIVE MICROWAVE SENSORS

Accurate assessment of preplanting soil moisture conditions is necessary for good agricultural management, and can have a significant influence on crop yield in the Texas Panhandle region. The Texas High Plains Underground Water Conservation District invests considerable time and money in developing a soil moisture deficit map each year in the hopes of achieving optimal use of irrigation water. Microwave sensors are responsive to surface soil moisture and, if used in this application, can provide timely and detailed information on root zone soil moisture. For this reason, an experiment was conducted in 1984 to evaluate the potential of aircraft-mounted passive microwave sensors. Microwave radiometer data were collected over a 2700 km2 area near Lubbock, Texas, with a processed resolution of 0.32 km2. These data were ground registered and converted to estimates of soil moisture using an appropriate model and land cover and soil texture information. Analyses indicate that the system provides an efficient means for mapping variations in soil moisture over large areas.