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T. Paris Anguela, M. Zribi, S. Hasenauer, F. Habets, C. Loumagne:
"Analysis of surface and root-zone soil moisture dynamics with ERS scatterometer and the hydrometeorological model SAFRAN-ISBA-MODCOU at Grand Morin watershed (France)";
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 12 (2008), 1415 - 1424.

Spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture
strongly affect flooding, erosion, solute transport and
vegetation productivity. Its characterization, offers an avenue
to improve our understanding of complex land surfaceatmosphere
interactions. In this paper, soil moisture dynamics
at soil surface (first centimeters) and root-zone (up to
1.5m depth) are investigated at three spatial scales: local
scale (field measurements), 8×8 km2 (hydrological model)
and 25×25 km2 scale (ERS scatterometer) in a French watershed.
This study points out the quality of surface and rootzone
soil moisture data for SIM model and ERS scatterometer
for a three year period. Surface soil moisture is highly
variable because is more influenced by atmospheric conditions
(rain, wind and solar radiation), and presents RMSE
up to 0.08m3 m−3. On the other hand, root-zone moisture
presents lower variability with small RMSE (between 0.02
and 0.06m3 m−3). These results will contribute to satellite
and model verification of moisture, but also to better application
of radar data for data assimilation in future.