Advancing soil moisture retrieval: a team member’s Master’s research, now published

Abstract 

The work carried out by our newest member, Andreu Melis, whilst studying for his Master’s degree at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in collaboration with Professor Adriano Camps, has recently been published in IEEE Access. 

The article assesses whether that subsurface moisture can be estimated from multi-frequency microwave radiometry. It combines an information-content analysis with an algorithmic feasibility study, comparing two retrieval approaches built around a five-parameter model of the soil-moisture profile, and evaluates how multi-polarized observations and multiple incidence angles improve the estimation. The results characterise the conditions under which root-zone soil moisture can be recovered radiometrically, a question with direct relevance to hydrology, agriculture and climate monitoring.

Our contribution 

This paper is the published research of Andreu Melis, now a full-time member of the Zenithal Blue team. It originated during the Introduction to Research module of the MATT Master’s programme at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in collaboration with Professor Adriano Camps. It reflects the radiometry and remote-sensing expertise Andreu brings to our work in Earth observation.

Medium 

IEEE Access (open access) · [Published on 1st September 2026] 

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11674113/