National Airborne Field Experiment 2005 31 Oct – 25 Nov 2005 Jeffrey Walker and Rocco Panciera University of Melbourne, Australia Experiment Plan October 2005 Contents 1 Overview and Objectives............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Overview .................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Objectives................................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Ground Requirements ................................................................................................................ 3 1.4 Air Requirements ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.5 General Approach ...................................................................................................................... 5 2 Satellite Observing Systems......................................................................................... 6 2.1 Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) ............................................ 7 2.2 WindSat...................................................................................................................................... 7 2.3 MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)..................................................... 7 2.4 Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) ..................... 8 2.5 Landsat ....................................................................................................................................... 9 2.6 Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) ................................................................................ 9 2.7 Hydrospheric States (Hydros) ....................................................................................................9 2.8 Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR).......................................................................... 10 2.9 Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) ........................................................ 10 2.10 Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) .................................................... 10 3 Aircraft Observing System........................................................................................ 10 3.1 Polarimetric L-band Multibeam Radiometer ........................................................................... 13 3.2 Thermal Imager........................................................................................................................ 13 3.3 Tri-spectral NDVI Scanner ...................................................................................................... 14 3.4 Digital Photography ................................................................................................................. 14 3.5 Airborne Laser Scanner............................................................................................................ 14 4 Catchments ................................................................................................................. 14 4.1 Climate ..................................................................................................................................... 15 4.2 Geology and Soils .................................................................................................................... 15 4.3 Vegetation ................................................................................................................................ 16 4.4 Monitoring Infrastructure......................................................................................................... 16 5 Ground Monitoring.................................................................................................... 20 5.1 Soil moisture profile stations.................................................................................................... 20 5.2 Supplementary monitoring stations.......................................................................................... 21 5.3 Spatial soil moisture mapping .................................................................................................. 23 5.3.1 Regional scale sampling........................................................................................................... 24 5.3.2 Focus farms measurements....................................................................................................... 26 5.4 Supporting data ........................................................................................................................ 29 5.4.1 Thermogravimetric soil moisture samples................................................................................ 31 5.4.2 Vegetation biomass and water content ..................................................................................... 31 5.4.3 Vegetation type......................................................................................................................... 32 5.4.4 Land use classification ............................................................................................................. 32 5.4.5 Vegetation Leaf Area Index (LAI) ........................................................................................... 32 5.4.6 Vegetation Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)................................................. 32 5.4.7 Surface roughness..................................................................................................................... 33 5.4.8 Soil textural properties ............................................................................................................. 33 5.4.9 Surface rock cover.................................................................................................................... 33 5.4.10 Leaf wetness............................................................................................................................. 33 6 Airborne Monitoring.................................................................................................. 34 6.1 Flight plans............................................................................................................................... 35 6.2 Low resolution mapping........................................................................................................... 37 6.3 Intermediate resolution mapping.............................................................................................. 39 ii 6.4 Medium resolution mapping .................................................................................................... 41 6.5 High resolution mapping.......................................................................................................... 43 6.6 Multi-incidence mapping .........................................................................................................45 6.7 Dew effect ................................................................................................................................ 47 6.8 NDVI........................................................................................................................................ 48 6.9 Aerial photography................................................................................................................... 48 6.10 Calibration................................................................................................................................ 48 6.11 Flight schedule ......................................................................................................................... 49 7 Field Work .................................................................................................................. 51 7.1 General guidance...................................................................................................................... 51 7.2 Focus farms .............................................................................................................................. 52 7.3 High resolution focus areas ...................................................................................................... 53 7.4 Regional sampling.................................................................................................................... 56 7.4.1 Soil moisture sampling at regional scale .................................................................................. 56 7.4.2 Vegetation sampling at the high resolution areas and surroundings......................................... 57 7.5 Sampling protocols................................................................................................................... 59 7.5.1 iPAQ procedures ...................................................................................................................... 59 7.5.2 HydraProbe sampling procedure .............................................................................................. 61 7.5.3 Gravimetric sampling procedure .............................................................................................. 63 7.5.4 Gravimetric soil moisture sample processing........................................................................... 64 7.5.5 Vegetation sampling procedure...............................................................................................