My name is Rogier van der Velde and I am an assistant professor at the Water Resources department of the Faculty of ITC (University of Twente).

I obtained my MSc degree (2004) in Hydrology from Wageningen University. In this period I studied the effects of soil hydraulic functions on simulated soil water budgets, methods to calculate the reference evapotranspiration and SAR-based soil moisture remote sensing at the Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory (HRSL) of the USDA-ARS in Beltsville, USA.

My PhD degree I received in 2010 from the University of Twente with a dissertation focused on soil moisture estimation from active microwave observations and the modelling of water and energy exchanges at the land-atmosphere interface. Soil moisture estimation at plot-scale, I applied to C- and L-band radar observations collected with a truck-mounted scatterometer deployed during a corn growth cycle. Envisat-ASAR have used to map soil moisture at regional-scale across the Naqu river basin on the Tibetan Plateau. The modelling of water and energy exchanges at land surface I have performed in the context of the Noah land surface model applied to a site on Tibetan Plateau.

In my post-PhD years I have continued to build on the earlier developed expertise. In addition, I have put considerable efforts to in-situ soil moisture monitoring by leading the development of the Naqu and Ngari monitoring networks on the Tibetan Plateau. Since 2015 I am responsible for the management of our monitoring network in the Twente region , which was selected as core international validation site for NASA’s SMAP (Soil Moisture Active/Passive) mission.

Over the years, my research interest has grown towards the development of Earth Observation applications for Regional Water Management. Via NWO-AES funded Optimizing Water Availability with Sentinel-1 Satellites (OWAS1S) project I contributed to this topic by investigating the added value of Sentinel-1 and SMAP soil moisture estimates for region water authorities. 

My main research interest focuses on the creation of spatial soil moisture data using a variety of remote sensing techniques and its application for regional water management.

Keywords are: - Soil Moisture, - In-Situ Monitoring, - Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), - Microwave Radiometry, - Microwave Emission & Scattering modelling, - Land Surface Hydrodology

M-SE Q1: Climate Resilient Cities (15 EC, since 2018)

M-GEO Q2: Earth Observation for Water Resources (7 EC, since 2018)

Ten years profile soil moisture and temperature measurements in Twente (DANS-KNAW, 2020)

More information: Twente regional soil moisture monitoring network

Data Access: 10.17026/dans-zrn-n8nh

Optimizing Water Availability with Sentinel-1 Satellites (NWO Domain Applied and Engineering Science, 2015)

More information: OWAS1S 

Modelling Freeze-Thaw Processes with Active and Passive Microwave Observations (NWO User Support Space programme, 2014)

More information: SMAP Freeze-Thaw

 PhD-candidate supervision

Ongoing:

• Soil Moisture Estimation from Sentinel-1 SAR Observations by ir. Harm-Jan Benninga
• Broadband Scatterometry for Monitoring Soil and Vegetation over a Tibetan Meadow by ir. Jan Hofste
• Coordinating Earth Observation and In-situ data from Modelling Surface Water and Heat Budgets on the Tibetan Plateau by Pei Zhang (together with dr. D. Zheng)

Defended disserations:

• Remote Sensing and Modelling of Snow Process by dr. Muhammad Jahanzeb Malik (graduated 2014)
• Water and Heat Exchanges on the Tibetan Plateau: Observation and modelling of the Yellow River Source Region by Prof. dr. Donghai Zheng (graduated 2016)
• Soil Moisture Estimation by Synergetic Use of Aquarius Active and Passive L-band Microwave Observations by dr. Qiang Wang (graduated 2018)