Welcome to the  
SMAPEx-2 Archive
Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiment

PLEASE NOTE: This data set should be acknowledged:
Panciera, R., Walker, J. P., Jackson, T. J., Gray, D., Tanase, M. A., Ryu, D., Monerris, A., Yardley, H., Rüdiger, C., Wu, X., Gao, Y., Hacker, J., 2014. The Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiments (SMAPEx): Towards Soil Moisture Retrieval from the SMAP Mission. IEEE Transaction on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 52(1): 490-507

Experiment Overview

The second SMAPEx experiment was conducted between December 4-8, 2010. A total of 25 hours of scientific flights were conducted between December 4 and 8, with concurrent ground sampling occurring on all days. Intense rainfall was experienced in the study area before and near the conclusion of the last day of SMAPEx-2, with 53mm of rainfall since November 1 to the beginning of sampling (December 4) and 24mm falling during the experiment, meaning that wet soil moisture conditions were experienced (0.25-0.33v/v). Due to warm moist conditions and delayed harvests, vegetation biomass was high, with crops at peak or near peak biomass (up to 4Kg/m2) and overgrown native and improved pastures (up to 1.6Kg/m2).

On each flight there was airborne acquisition of Polarimetric L-band Multibeam Radiometer (PLMR) and Polarimetric L-band Imaging Scatterometer (PLIS) data, as well as supporting thermal radiometers and multispectral radiometers. The exception was the PALSAR transect flight where PLMR data were not acquired. Intensive ground sampling was undertaken concurrently with the flights and included spatial soil moisture, surface roughness, gravimetric soil sampling, vegetation LAI and reflectance measurements, destructive vegetation sampling, classification of land cover and canopy height, crop row spacing and direction. In addition to the OzNet and SMAPEx continuous monitoring networks, 4 temporary monitoring sites recorded additional soil moisture and temperature, vegetation skin temperature, leaf wetness and rainfall data during the experiment period.

The intense rainfall prior to the campaign caused extensive flooding in the study area, with access to several of the SMAPEx sampling areas made difficult by standing water throughout the experiment. Mapping of flooded areas was also conducted to provide validation data for radar estimates of standing water. Complete details can be found in the experiment plan and the workplan addendum. The data collected can be viewed and downloaded from the menu on the sidebar. A summary of the campaign schedule is provided below.

SMAPEx-2 SMAPEx-1 overview

SMAPEx-2 Schedule

Date

Flight type

Altitude

Radiometer  Spatial Resolution (m)

Radar
Spatial Resolution(m)

Intensive
Ground
Sampling

Dec 4

Regional

10,000ft

1km

10-30m

YA4 & YC

Dec 5

Target YA

1,000ft

100m

10-30m

YA4

Dec 6

Regional

10,000ft

1km

10-30m

YD & YB5

Dec 7

Multi-angle
& PALSAR transect

10,000ft

-

10-30m

YA4

Multi-azimuth

5,000ft

500m

10-30m

Dec 8

Regional

10,000ft

1km

10-30m

YB7

 

Created: July 2010
Last Modified: March 2013
Maintainer: Xiaoling Wu, xiaoling.wu@monash.edu