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Soil Moisture

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Remote Sensing in Hydrology and Water Management

Abstract

Soil moisture is an environmental descriptor that integrates much of the land surface hydrology and is the interface between the solid earth surface and the atmosphere. By far the most important role for soil moisture is in controlling and regulating the interaction between the atmosphere and the land surface. The redistribution of solar energy over the globe is central to studies in climate and weather. Water serves a fundamental role in this redistribution through the energy associated with evapotranspiration, the transport of atmospheric water vapor, and precipitation. Residence times for atmospheric water is on the order of a week and for soil moisture from a couple of days to months, emphasizing the active nature of the hydrologic cycle. Understanding the importance of the land-surface hydrology to climate has emerged as an important research area since the mid 1960s when researchers at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory placed a land hydrology component into their general circulation model (GCM) (see Manabe et al., 1965; Manabe, 1969).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hydrological Sciences Branch, Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

    Edwin T. Engman (Head)

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  1. Edwin T. Engman
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Hydrologie, Wasserwirtschaft und Umwelttechnik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Gert A. Schultz

  2. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Edwin T. Engman

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© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Engman, E.T. (2000). Soil Moisture. In: Schultz, G.A., Engman, E.T. (eds) Remote Sensing in Hydrology and Water Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59583-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59583-7_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64036-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59583-7

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