The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is expected to launch its Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite this winter to collect local soil moisture data. Farmers and water managers worldwide will be able to use the satellite data to grow crops more efficiently, especially in drought conditions.
SMAP will monitor the top 5 centimeters, about 2 inches, of soil on Earth’s surface. The satellite will map the entire globe to create soil moisture estimates with a resolution of about 9 kilometers—more than 5.5 miles—every two or three days. Although the resolution cannot show how much soil moisture might vary within a single field, it will give the most detailed maps yet made, reports LexiNexis.
If farmers of rain-fed crops know soil moisture, they can schedule their planting to maximize crop yield, said Narendra Das, a water and carbon cycle scientist on SMAP’s science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. SMAP can assist in predicting how dramatic drought will be, and then its data can help farmers plan their recovery from drought.
Currently, there is not a global network monitoring local soil moisture data at the resolution levels that SMAP will collect.