Evaluation of Three Semi-Empirical Soil Moisture Estimation Models

Soil moisture or soil water content is an important factor and parameter for agricultural, hydrological and meteorological applications. Usually the soil moisture definition is, divided into two branches: deep or root zone soil moisture, and surface soil moisture. Surface soil moisture is refers to the water that is in the upper 10 cm of soil and only constitutes 0.0012% of all water available on Earth (Verhoest et al., 2008). Whereas root zone soil moisture is the water that is available to plants, which is generally considered to be in the upper 200 cm of soil. The water stored in the soil has different roles in the global water cycle. For instance, the growth of plants, irrigation scheduling management, good product, crisis management during drought, etc. Or, it controls the partitioning of rainfall into runoff and infiltration. Runoff commonly means both exporting fresh water to other areas and degradation of topsoil through leaching and erosion(surface moisture), infiltration mean filling underground aquifers (deep soil moisture) (Verhoest et al., 2008). It has been widely observed that soil moisture is also a key variable in flood forecasting...