Remote Sensing Application in Soil Moisture Content Estimation

Abstract

The knowledge of soil moisture is crucial to agriculture and other sectors such as, the construction industries. Precise estimation of spatial and temporal variation of soil moisture is vital for ecological and hydrological studies also. In recent times, remote sensing techniques have been used to estimate soil moisture. Estimation of soil moisture by remote sensing techniques provides only surface layer information and is unable to observe the entire soil. However, on the other hand, field measurement provides valuable information on both surface and subsurface soil moisture, but are insufficient to determine the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture at a larger scale. Therefore, remote sensing methods have an edge over field methods. Soil moisture variations in time and space are due to the vegetation, topography and soil texture. This paper presents a comprehensive work in estimating soil moisture using Land surface temperature. The temperature was gotten using Landsat-8 thermal infrared band for Oredo Local Government Area and was used to determine the soil moisture of the area using ArcGIS (ArcMap 10.2.2).The map showed places with low, moderate and high moisture index with the moderate moisture content being the most dominant.