DOE OSTI · 2567142
Remotely Sensed High‐Resolution Soil Moisture and Evapotranspiration: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society
Abstract
This paper reviews the current state of high‐resolution remotely sensed soil moisture (SM) and evapotranspiration (ET) products and modeling, and the coupling relationship between SM and ET. SM downscaling approaches for satellite passive microwave products leverage advances in artificial intelligence and high‐resolution remote sensing using visible, near‐infrared, thermal‐infrared, and synthetic aperture radar sensors. Remotely sensed ET continues to advance in spatiotemporal resolutions from MODIS to ECOSTRESS to Hydrosat and beyond. These advances enable a new understanding of bio‐geo‐physical controls and coupled feedback mechanisms between SM and ET reflecting the land cover and land use at field scale (3–30 m, daily). Still, the state‐of‐the‐science products have their challenges and limitations, which we detail across data, retrieval algorithms, and applications. We describe the roles of these data in advancing 10 application areas: drought assessment, food security, precision agriculture, soil salinization, wildfire modeling, dust monitoring, flood forecasting, urban water, energy, and ecosystem management, ecohydrology, and biodiversity conservation. We discuss that future scientific advancement should focus on developing open‐access, high‐resolution (3–30 m), sub‐daily SM and ET products, enabling the evaluation of hydrological processes at finer scales and revolutionizing the societal applications in data‐limited regions of the world, especially the Global South for socio‐economic development.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Explore connections, maps & timelines
Huang, Jingyi [Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)] (ORCID:0000000212099699), Sehgal, Vinit [Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge, LA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000288375864), Alvarez, Laura V. [Univ. of Texas at El Paso, TX (United States)] (ORCID:0000000250475384), Brocca, Luca [National Research Council (CNR), Perugia (Italy)] (ORCID:000000029080260X), Cai, Shuohao [Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)], Cheng, Rui [Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000230038339), Cheng, Xinghua [Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (United States)] (ORCID:0000000219316174), Du, Jinyang [Univ. of Montana, Missoula, MT (United States)] (ORCID:0000000286986696), El Masri, Bassil [Murray State University, KY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000210175467), Endsley, K. Arthur [Univ. of Montana, Missoula, MT (United States)] (ORCID:0000000197228092), Fang, Yilin [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000319699889), Hu, Jie [Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)] (ORCID:0000000308313792), Jampani, Mahesh [International Water Management Institute (IWMI‐CGIAR), Colombo (Sri Lanka)] (ORCID:000000028925719X), Kibria, Md Golam [Morehead State Univ., KY (United States)], Koren, Gerbrand [Utrecht University (Netherlands)] (ORCID:0000000222750713), Li, Lingcheng [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000268345844), Liu, Laibao [Univ. of Hong Kong, Pokfulam (Hong Kong)] (ORCID:0000000191400509), Mao, Jiafu [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000220507373), Moreno, Hernan A. [Univ. of Texas at El Paso, TX (United States)] (ORCID:0000000304086588), Rigden, Angela [Department of Earth System Science University of California Irvine CA USA] (ORCID:0000000338766602), Shi, Mingjie [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000224694831), Shi, Xiaoying [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000189945032), Wang, Yaoping [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000251621910), Zhang, Xi [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)], Fisher, Joshua B. [Chapman Univ., Orange, CA (United States); Hydrosat USA, Washington, DC (United States)] (ORCID:0000000347349085). 2025-05-13. Remotely Sensed High‐Resolution Soil Moisture and Evapotranspiration: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Society. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024wr037929
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.