1.

Incidence Angle Normalization Wave properties such as the incidence angle resulted from the side-looking configuration of the SAR sensor disturbs in interpretation of the backscattering values. Obtaining radar backscatters depending only on the surface properties requires the minimization of observation geometry effect. Consequently, incidence angle normalization toward a single reference angle should be done. This leads to more accurace quantitative analysis of retrieval radar backscattering coefficients (Loew et al.,2005). We nomalized the 0 based on physical model of Lamberts law for optics assuming the cosine relationship between the incidence angle and amount of scattering per unit of surface area. Van der Velde et al., (2008), Van der Velde & Su, (2009) and Lievens et al., (2011) alse utilized this method fo incidence angle correction. The backscatter observations were normalized to a reference angle of 30 degrees being averaged incidence angle (Ulaby et al., 1982; Wagner et al., 1999) in the PALSAR data set, (30) = cos (30 ) ( ) cos ( )

where, 0( ) is the incidence angular dependent rdar backscatter, ( ) represents the local incidence angle and (30) is the normalized backscatter to a single incidence angle of 30 in degree. 2. TU-Wien Soil Moisture Retrieval Method Scatterometers measure the intensity of backscattering signal, which is affected by roughness, vegetation structure, vegetation water content, and soil moisture. These factors influence the backscattering coefficient 0 on different time scales. At the resolution of the ERS and Metop scatterometers, surface roughness can be in general considered as a temporally invariant parameter. Surface soil moisture changes rapidly within hours to days, contrary to the vegetation canopy and vegetation water content, which vary within several days to weeks. Scattering from vegetated surface is a complex phenomenon. There have been several canopy scattering models developed to describe 0 in terms of vegetation and soil surface parameters based on a solution of the radiative transfer equation (Ulaby et al.1990); (Karam et al. 1992); (Saatchi et al. 1994). Radiative transfer theory describes the propagation of radiation through a medium affected by absorption, emission and scattering processes. Equation 3-1 formulates the first-order radiative transfer solution for the scattering problem of the vertically polarized radiation by a vegetation canopy (Fung 1994):
= + + = 1 ()e e + +2

()Te

(3-1)

where is Backscattering coefficient of the vegetation canopy, volume scattering, surface scattering, surface-volume interaction, back scattering coefficient of soil surface, single

scattering albedo of the canopy, optical depth or thickness of thecanopy, and reflectivity for vertically polarized radiation.

Fresnel power

The problem with more complex theoretical scattering models is that their input data requirements are very challenging and for solving the equations many parameters are needed such as leaf diameter, branch length, trunk moisture, and probability functions representing the orientational distribution of leaves, branches, and trunks.

The TU-Wien soil moisture retrieval method initially presented by Wagner et al. (1999b) is principally an empirical model based on change detection. Several studies showed that the change detection technique can overcome some of the problems of physically based inversion models as it directly accounts for the scattering process of rough and heterogeneous land surfaces if sufficient longterm data are available. The potential of using such methods has been demonstrated for both active and passive microwave data (Moeremans and Dautrebande 1998), (Quesney et al. 2000), (Moran et al. 2000), (Le Hegarat-Mascle et al. 2002), (De Ridder 2000), (Njoku et al. 2002). Wagner (1998b) used a backscattering model for sensitivity analysis of ERS scatterometer data in which backscatter from vegetated land surface is described as a mixture of nontransparent (forests, bushes, shrubs) and translucent (grassland, agriculture land) vegetation:
= (1 A) + A

(3-2)

where is the backscatter from translucent vegetation, is the backscatter from nontransparent vegetation, and A is the percentage area of nontransparent vegetation.

The of natural targets depends strongly on the incidence angle. The growth of translucent vegetation types such as grasses or agricultural crops results in a less steep decline of with the incidence angle, and may increase or decrees depending on the incidence angle and soil wetness. In general with increasing the percentage area of nontransparent vegetation A , the backscattering coefficient in very low incidence angles may decrease whereas in higher incidence angles the backscatter intensity measured by scatterometer increases. In the TU-Wien method soil moisture dynamics are extracted after modeling the behavior of with respect to the surface roughness and the local variability of vegetation and eventually subtracting them from the backscatter signal. In the retrieval algorithm the multi-looking direction ability of scatterometer is used to describe the incidence angle behavior of the backscatter signal as a seasonal function. Table 3-1 summarizes the mathematical formulations involved in TU-Wien algorithm. 3.1. Normalization of Viewing Geometry Both SCAT and ASCAT instruments onboard ERS-1&2 and Metop take the measurements at different azimuthal and incidence angles, which vary from acquisition toacquisition. As the intensity of backscatter signal strongly depends on the incidence angle, itis not possible to compare observations directly. Therefore the backscattering coefficients have to be normalized to a reference incidence angle. Since in most areas of the Earth the azimuthal look direction does not have a significant effect on backscattering observations, the azimuthal angle was not considered in normalization of viewing geometry in the TUWien method.

TU-Wien Soil Moisture Retrieval Method Table 3-1. Mathematical formulations of the TU-Wien soil moisture retrieval model. Incidence angle dependency of backscatter: (, = ) (40, )+ (40, () 40) + (40, () 40) and are defined as the first and second derivatives of () Seasonal variation of the slope: (40, = )C + D (t) C is the annual minimum slope value and D is the dynamic range of slope. (t) is an empirical periodic function describing the annual variation of slope. Seasonal variation of the curvature: (40, = )C + D (t) C is the annual minimum curvature value and D is the dynamic range of curvature. (t) is an empirical periodic function describing the annual variation of curvature. Normalized backscatter coefficient: (40, ) (40, = ) ( , ) (40, () 40) (40, () 40) is the normalized backscatter of ith beam at 40.

(3-3)

(3-4)

(3-5)

(3-6)

Backscatter under dry and wet conditions:1

(3-7) (3-8)

(40, D (t)( 40) D (t)( 40) = )C

soil conditions, C and C are the annual minimum and maximum backscatter.

and

are backscatter from dryest/wettest soil, and are the crossver angles for dry/wet

Surface Soil Moisture:

(t) =

(,) (,)

(,) (,)

100

(3-9)

is defined as the degree of saturation ranging between 0 and 100%