The 20th webinar in the EO AFRICA R&D Facility Webinar Series: Using the new H SAF 6.25km ASCAT soil moisture data for drought monitoring takes place on 16 April 2025 at 15:00 CEST. The webinar will be executed under the framework of the EO AFRICA R&D Facility by the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien). The webinar is led by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wagner, Head of the Research Group Microwave Remote Sensing.
Details
ASCAT has been instrumental in monitoring soil moisture on a worldwide scale. The near-real-time ASCAT soil moisture service (<3h), launched in 2008, was the first of its kind and was later incorporated into the Satellite Application Facility for Support to Operational Hydrology and Water Management (H SAF).
Recently, the ASCAT soil moisture retrieval algorithm was updated, marking the biggest product improvements since the inception of the service:
- enhanced spatial sampling (6.25 km instead of 12.5 km),
- improved anomaly detection thanks to algorithms that account for land cover changes,
- better modelling of seasonal vegetation effects, and
- a new data format that facilitates easier comparison of near-real-time data with historical time series.
This webinar will present the key changes and explain how they contribute to improved drought monitoring.
