NASA's SMAP Satellite To Slake Thirst for Soil Moisture Data

摘要

The U.S. Agriculture Department's Foreign Agricultural Service issues frequent forecasts on the health of crops worldwide to help individual farmers, businesses and government agencies anticipate supply and demand. Accurate information can be difficult to obtain, however, for areas that lack gauges to measure precipitation or soil moisture, one of the most important indicators of future plant health. The areas without gauges also tend to be places where people face food shortages or food insecurity, said John Bolten, a physical scientist in the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Those places are likely to benefit greatly from the types of data that will be provided by NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite, he added.