Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2013
Present soil moisture and ocean salinity maps retrieved by remote sensing are characterized by a coarse spatial resolution. Hydrological, meteorological and climatological applications would benefit greatly from a better spatial resolution. Owing to the dimensions of the satellite structure and to the degradation of the instrument’s radiometric sensitivity, such improvement cannot be achieved with classical interferometry. Then, in order to achieve this goal an original concept for passive interferometric measurements is described. This concept should allow to achieve a much finer spatial resolution, which can be further improved with the application of disaggregation methods. The results will then allow the integration of global soil moisture maps into hydrological models, a better management of water resources at small scales and an improvement in spatial precision for various applications.