We report the use of the microwave remote sensing as a technique with great potential for the mapping of subsurface soil water content. Remote sensing experiments were conducted in different landscape and climatic conditions of the partially forest-covered Chernobyl nuclear disaster area and the Negev desert. The remote sensor used was a continuous wave frequency modulated P-band scatterometer along with the collection ground trust data such as surface roughness and volumetric soil moisture. The results of the microwave experiments are in good agreement with the developed theoretical models that take into account the effects of the plant cover, surface roughness and interference at the beginning of soil irrigation.

A scatterometer operating in P-band at 441 MHz was used to estimate soil water content. This letter describes encouraging results of experiments that were undertaken in Israel at Yotvata and Ashalim experimental farms. The soil water saturation percent of the entire wetting and drying cycles created through irrigation of sandy agricultural soils were retrieved using the scatterometer, which yielded good agreement with gravimetric measurements of soil water content demonstrating that P-band provides relatively unambiguous estimates of the soil water saturation percent.

We report the remote detection of a physically buried specular reflecting object using microwave radar at Ashalim in the northern region of the Negev desert, Israel. Such detection provides an important terrestrial analogy for the potential detection of specularly reflecting subsurfaces under the desiccated regolith on Mars, such as ground‐ice and liquid water. At Ashalim, a scatterometer operating in the P‐band (441 MHz, 68 cm) was mounted on a cherry picker truck at a height of 8 m and used to detect two triangular aluminum mesh reflectors (forming a one meter square area reflector) buried down to a depth of 8 cm in dry sand. The decrease in measured backscattered power with increasing burial depth of the reflector is clearly evident. The experimental results compare well with a theoretical model that incorporates radar absorption effects arising in the sandy subsurface layer and radar interference effects arising from phase differences between reflections from the surface and buried reflector. This experiment and the associated modeling approach is the first of a series of planned experiments, which we outline for the detection and the theoretical evaluation of buried reflectors using remote microwave and VHF radar. We identify many potential subject areas for subsurface remote sensing in the Martian domain, particularly groundwater/ground‐ice.

The presented results demonstrate the use of airborne radar scatterometers flown aboard a light aircraft for environmental monitoring and precision agriculture. A good agreement between values measured in the field and estimated by the scatterometers has been found with some overestimation for the lower moisture sites. Furthermore, for a more temperate site in Ukraine the scatterometer was found to be very useful also in estimating the depth of the groundwater table. Alongside the scatterometer a gamma-ray radiometer was flown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster site. The ability to map soil moisture and water table depth in conjunction with gamma-ray radiometry is extremely useful in monitoring the after affects and the rehabilitation of the Chernobyl NPP disaster area. Due to deforestation caused by the Chernobyl disaster high levels of soil moisture can be hazardous themselves in creating swampland. This phenomenon can be monitored and mapped by airborne scatterometers

The research problem is to reveal location and estimate total intensity of the filtration flows, that pass under the dam body from the reservoir-cooler and unload to the Pripyat river. With this aim the CARTE airborne-laboratory has provided remote sensing survey of the radiation temperature fields on the ground surface, the soil surface layer moisture and the underground water level depth. As a result of the survey data processing the zones of the wet soil with underground water level higher than ground surface level have been located. Within these zones the low value of T-rad was observed. The value of T-rad was determined on day time by increased heat debit on evaporation and large thermal inertia of the wet soil, retarding its heat by insulation. Such coincidence of positive W anomalies and negative T-rad anomalies made possible to draw conclusion that they were confined to the areas of the underground water unloading from the reservoir-cooler under the dam to the Pripyat river. By resulted data the estimation of the filtration loss value under the dam has been performed.