The objective of this paper is to analyze the behaviour of a backscattered signalaccording to soil moisture depth over bare soils. Analysis based on experimental verticalmoisture profiles and ASAR/ENVISAT measurements has been carried out. A modifiedIEM model with three permittivity layers (0-1cm, 1-2cm, 2-5cm) has been developed andused in this study. Results show a small effect of moisture profile on the backscatteredsignal (less than 0.5dB). However, measurements and simulations have provided a moredetailed insight into the behaviour of the radar signal and have shown that it was importantto consistently use the same protocol when performing ground truth measurements of soilmoisture.
Keywords: ASAR-ENVISAT; IEM; Soil moisture; permittivity profile.