Active and passive airborne microwave remote sensing for soil moisture retrieval in the Rur catchment, Germany

The objective of the NASA Soil Moisture Active & Passive (SMAP) mission is to provide global measurements of soil moisture by fused active and passive L-band microwave measurements. With an airborne campaign conducted in the Rur catchment, Germany, in 2012, an active and passive L-band microwave data set is generated. The passive Polarimetric L-band Multi-beam Radiometer (PLMR2) and the active L-band system DLR F-SAR were installed on the DLR Dornier DO 228 aircraft. Despite of the differences between the airborne and the future spaceborne sensors, the data set will serve as a test bed for the analysis of existing and development of enhanced future active/passive data fusion techniques. Moreover, the derivation of (vegetation) parameters for the fusion approaches is planned.