Manitoba JECAM Site

Dr. Heather McNairnScience and Technology Branch, Ottawaheather.mcnairn@agr.gc.ca

Jarrett PowersScience and Technology Branch, Winnipegjarrett.powers@agr.gc.ca

Agriculture SAR Research in Manitoba

Campaign Research focus Microwave DataAltona 1993Altona, Manitoba

Crop type discrimination with SAR JPL AIRSAR airborneERS-1

Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C)/X-SARAltona, Manitoba (1994)

Soil moisture with SAR;early assessment of polarimetry for soils/crops

CV-580 airborneJPL AIRSAR airborneERS-1

Altona 1996Altona, Manitoba

Tillage change detection with SAR RADARSAT-1

Carman 1997Carman, Manitoba

Crop type discrimination with SAR RADARSAT-1

Red River 2006 Crop type discrimination with SAR RADARSAT-1Envisat ASAR

Elm Creek 2008Elm Creek, Manitoba

Soil moisture with SAR RADARSAT-1 RADARSAT-2 Envisat ASAR

Elm Creek 2010Elm Creek, Manitoba

Soil moisture with SAR; residue and tillage estimation with SAR

RADARSAT-2

RISMA2012 - ongoing

Methods development for soil moisture

RADARSAT-2

SMAPVEX12Carman, Manitoba (2012)

Soil moisture, LAI, biomass, crop type, phenology

PALS airborneUAVSAR airborneRADARSAT-2TerraSAR-X

SMAPVEX16Carman, Manitoba (2016)

Soil moisture, LAI, biomass, crop type, phenology

SMAPRADARSAT-2TerraSAR-XRISATSentinel-1ALOS-2

Agriculture SAR Research in Manitoba

• beginning in 1993, specific research site has moved slightly over the years: Altona, Carman, Elm Creek (all southwest of Winnipeg)

• important agricultural region for Canada, but one that is susceptible to extremes in particular as it relates to water

• due to flat topography and heavy soils, region is susceptible to snow-melt driven flooding

Cropping Characteristics

• typical crop rotation is a cereal crop alternating with oilseed\pulse crops

• typical field sizes range from 20-30 to 50-60 hectares

• SMAPVEX study site: soybeans, wheat and canola account for ~70% of crops grown in the study area (2 and 5 year average). Other crops include corn, oats, field beans and forages

• for SMAPVEX12 and 16, a total of 50 fields were selected for sampling. 21 fields from the SMAPVEX12 were used for the 2016 campaign.

Soil Characteristics

• site was first chosen for SIR-C/X-SAR in 1993-1994 since within a small footprint, soil textures change dramatically

• this means that we could design more spatially constrained aircraft sorties yet capture significant variance in soil moisture in one sortie; also meant that within one RADARSAT QP image (swaths of 25 or 50 km) we could also capture spatially varying soil moisture

• within SMAPVEX site: clay and fine loamy soils account for approximately 76.5% of the study area; coarse loamy and sand soils account for 23.5% of the study area

RISMA – Permanent Soil Moisture Network

The Real-time In-situ Soil Monitoring for Agriculture (RISMA) network (in Manitoba) has 9 permanent soil moisture stations located in the Carman-Elm Ck, 3 in Sturgeon Ck and 3 in Carberry. The stations support AAFC remote sensing, soil sensor, irrigation and hydrology research. The Carman-Elm Ck network is a core validation site for the SMAP mission. • 3 Soil moisture probes at surface

(vertical) • 3 Probes at 5 cm, 20cm, 50cm and 100

cm• Probes are 50-100 feet from field edge• Tipping bucket rain gauge, air temp,

relative humidity, solar radiation (2014)• Data is transmitted hourly via cell phone

RISMA 7 south of Elm Creek, MB

Soil profile prior to install

RISMA – Data Distribution

• AAFC is currently disseminating the data via their HTTP server, as flat files posting data recordings every hour for each of the stations.

• AAFC contracted FieldVision to develop a site agriculture.canada.ca/SoilMonitoringStationsfor data display, querying and downloading

SMAPVEX (2012 and 2016)

Overview of Campaigns

• 2012: pre-launch campaign to validate and calibrate candidate SMAP soil moisture retrieval algorithms, using aircraft data to simulate SMAP

• 2016: post-launch validation and calibration of soil moisture retrievals from SMAP satellite

• In addition to passive microwave data (both aircraft and satellite), data from SAR sensors also acquired (UAVSAR, RADARSAT-2, TerraSAR-X, ALOS PALSAR, RISAT-1, Sentinel-1 A/B)

• Soil moisture: RISMA, USDA temporary stations, field crews during aircraft flight and SMAP acquisitions

• Surface roughness: once per field at beginning of experiment

• Vegetation: biomass, vegetation water content, LAI, height, phenology, structure (2012); vegetation and soil temperatures

Field Data Collection

Data Availability

SMAPVEX

• McNairn et al. “The Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2012 (SMAPVEX12): Pre-Launch Calibration and Validation of the SMAP Satellite”, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol.53, no.5, pp.2784,2801

• Data base reports: heather.mcnairn@agr.gc.ca

• All ground data are available from: https://nsidc.org/

• UAVSAR, SMAP, Sentinel: https://vertex.daac.asf.alaska.edu/

• All other satellite data: heather.mcnairn@agr.gc.ca

Other historical SAR and ground data : heather.mcnairn@agr.gc.ca