Estimation of Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Soil moisture Levels of Umarkot District Sindh

Mudassar Umar (a), Siraj Munir (b), Said Rahman (b)

a b

MS (RSGIS) Student, Institute of Space Technology, Karachi. (SUPARCO).

SPAS Dte, Pakistan Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission

ABSTRACT
Soil moisture plays an important role in understanding of hydrology and climate. Soil moisture is a key variable in hydrological process, as the availability of moisture content in soil controls the mechanism between the Land Surface and atmospheric processes. Accurate estimation of soil moisture is crucial in Environmental studies. Soil moisture can be measured by variety of remote sensing techniques. Combination of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) can be used as indicator for surface Soil moisture monitoring. For In situ measurements of soil moisture the District Umarkot of Sindh was visited and a total of 24 samples were collected and analyzed. Soil moisture was calculated using the dry mass technique. Initial weight was carried out then the samples were heated at 105 C for 18 hrs to calculate the dry weight. A relationship can be developed between ground and satellite based observed Soil moisture

measurements. This paper focuses on comparison and validation of the methods to retrieve Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Soil moisture from MODIS and Landsat TM and ETM data. Maximum soil moisture values for depths (0-15 cm, 15-30 cm, 3045 cm) are (19.80%, 19.20%, 21.20%), respectively. The minimum soil moisture values for depths (0-15 cm, 15-30 cm, 30-45 cm) are (0.2%, 0.2%, 0.2%), respectively.

Keywords: Land Surface Temperature; Normalized Vegetation Difference Index; MODIS; Landsat