The Living Planet Program : Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS)

Towards SMOS next

In response to the needs expressed by the hydrological and earth sciences community :

Hydrological applications, from local to regional scales, require surface moisture observations at a sub-kilometer spatial resolution.

• An innovative idea is proposed by CESBIO: SMOS-next, with the following caracteristics : SMOS-next ,

• Technology : reconstruction by spatio-temporal interferometry of 1D observations in L-band.
• Spatial Resolution: 4 km : an improvement by a factor 10
• Revisit period : 3 days

tomorrow SMOS Next   illustration of a possible configuration of SMOS-next : two satellites in formation

 

• the spatial and temporal resolution of disaggregated « SMOS-next " data will be consistent with the representation of hydrological processes in models :

 

• In order to repond to the need expressed above, a disaggregation strategy will be implemented. One solution would be the synergy with optical sensors by using physicaly-based disaggregation (Merlin 0. et al, 2008).

	Physically-based disaggregation methodology
surface moisture at 4 km			surface moisture a 400 m

Basics : The methodology is based on soil evaporative fraction models, which utilize the same physical basis as SVAT models.

Ancillary data : use of optical (red, near-infrared and thermal infrared) data : Landsat, ASTER, Mistigri.

Products : The disaggregation of 4 km resolution SMOS-next surface soil moisture will provide data at hectometric resolution while keeping a satisfying accuracy.

• Hydrological modelling

  Hence the hydrological modelling will be addressed with adequat data in terms of temporal and spatial resolution. The hydrological modelling will relly largely on data assimilation technics to respond to the below objectives:

Objectives

1. Improving flood forecasting
2. Water management in irrigated areas
3. Climate impact on water resources
4. Partitioning of surface and subsurface fluxes.
5. ...

• This project is supported by CNES (R&T).