The Combination of Ground-Sensing Network and Satellite Remote Sensing in Huailai County

A sensor network was deployed around the remote test station at Huailai, Hebei province, China, for the purpose of substantially supporting the validation and application of remote sensing using ground-based earth observations. The observed parameters include soil moisture, solar radiation, albedo, surface temperature, and leaf area index (LAI). The ground sensors are equipped with automatic data loggers and a transferring unit that can instantaneously send the observational data to the data center using a wireless network. The observational data are then processed, analyzed, and published in online. After introducing the wireless sensor net hardware and software, some preliminary applications based on using the ground data to validate remote-sensing products are presented. The data of soil humidity from wireless sensor network (WSN) are closely related to those from the oven-drying method when the soil humidity is between 10% and 30%. From mid-July to early October, moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer land surface albedo product-MCD43B3-was highly consistent with the surface observational data from WSN during growing period of corn under an ideal black and white sky. Most of LAI of corn from LAI sensor are very close to the ground truth values from the harvest method. Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) land surface temperature was basically consistent with the ground measured data. It is suggested that the wireless sensors can be widely deployed for validating remote-sensing products.