Monitoring permafrost soil moisture with multi-temporal TERRASAR-X data in northern tibet

Global change has significant impact on permafrost region in the Tibet Plateau. Soil moisture of permafrost is the important factor influencing the energy flux, ecosystem and hydrologic process. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides us a powerful tool to monitor the soil moisture. In this study, 19 scenes of German TerraSAR-X data are used to retrieve the soil moisture in Beiluhe, Northern Tibet. The field campaign was performed on Aug. 12, 2015 and Mar. 8–13, 2016 during the TerraSAR-X overflight to acquire in situ soil parameters, together with the temperature and precipitation data from the weather station. Two approaches are proposed, one is based on time series observations, and the other is based on AIEM. Promising results are obtained.