Beyond Alerts: spatiotemporal Trade-offs in near-real-time Detection Systems for Forest Disturbance in the Brazilian Amazon

Multiple methods for measuring soil moisture beyond the point scale exist. Their validation is generally hindered by not knowing the truth. We propose a virtual framework in which this truth is fully known and the sensor observations for cosmic ray neutron sensing, remote sensing, and hydrogravimetry are simulated. This allows for the rigorous testing of these virtual sensors to understand their effectiveness and limitations.

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a sum of soil evaporation and plant transpiration. ET produces a cooling effect to mitigate heat waves in urban areas. Our method uses a physical model with remote sensing and meteorological data to predict hourly ET. Designed for uniform vegetation, it overestimated urban ET. To correct it, we create a factor using vegetation fraction that proved efficient for reducing bias and improving accuracy. This approach was tested on two Berlin sites and can be used to map ET.