Project Number: 1265-13610-027-55
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 01, 2006
End Date: Jun 30, 2011

Objective:
Integrate global soil moisture remote sensing and modeling data products into the USDA Global Crop Production Decision Support System to improve reliability and accuracy in forecasting crop yields. Investigate use of other satellite sensors by estimating vegetation water content to improve soil moisture remote sensing.

Approach:
Satellite soil moisture products will be evaluated and integrated into a modeling and data assimilation framework that will result in new products for the USDA FAS. The assimilation system, LDAS, operates within NASA. Methods for acquiring and introducing both the satellite data into the models and the data assimilation products into decision making will be developed. Extensive streamlining of data flows are needed. The benefits of alternatives will be evaluated. In this revised statement of work we propose to augment the original project scope to include analysis of equivalent water thickness using remotely sensed indices (MODIS, TM, AWIFS, and ASTER) for the Soil Moisture Experiments (SMEX) in 2004 (Arizona) and 2005 (Iowa). We will use MODIS, TM, ASTER, AWIFS, SMEX05 field data, SMEX05 landcover data and NASS landcover data in a comparison of landcover classification and its impact on the remote sensing of equivalent water thickness.