Studying the relationship between superficial soil watercontent and observed Land surface Temperature withAHS data and modeling techniques within theSEN2FLEX experiment

Algorithms for quantitative estimation of canopy biophysical variables from remote observation enable continuous crop status monitoring. Mediated by root apparatus, a link exist between crop water content and soil water availability. Previous research has evidenced the existence of a robust relationship between the water status of vegetated surfaces, their canopy development and the corresponding surface temperature. Although it is very difficult to determine with accuracy the soil water content of vegetated surfaces from surface temperature, this latter can be taken –under given circumstances– as a proxy of soil water status. This information, together with other observations in the solar range needed to determine land surface parameters, can be of great usefulness for the validation of hydrological distributed models, and possibly for a definition of data assimilation schemes. So doing, it is possible to increase the reliability of distributed hydrological numerical models, widely used as operative tools in a large number of applications dealing with water management problems.