Vegetation effects on the microwave emission of soils

Research has shown that soil moisture information can be retrieved by passive microwave remote sensing. This is even possible when there is a vegetation canopy present if the effects of the vegetation are corrected for. Vegetation correction algorithms must attempt to include all significant physical parameters, yet they must also only require data that can be readily obtained. Previous research proposed a model that attempted to meet these requirements. Critical to this model is the estimation of a vegetation parameter b that characterizes the canopy. In this study we evaluated published data to determine the functional dependence of this parameter on vegetation characteristics.