Abstract
Abstract. Soil moisture and precipitation have been monitored in a hydrometeorological network situated within the Brightwater Creek basin, east of Kenaston, Saskatchewan, Canada, since 2007. The majority of the prairie landscape is annually cropped with some sections in pasture. This agricultural region is ideal for remote-sensing validation and calibration and, in conjunction with the flux tower situated within the network, hydrological model validation. Remote-sensing validation collaborations have included the European Space Agency's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP). The network was developed at two spatial scales, one high-resolution set of sites installed over a 10 km × 10 km region and a second installed over 40 km × 40 km. The sites are all similar in design with three instrument depths for soil moisture and temperature, as well as precipitation measurement. The 2007–2017 dataset published in this paper has gone through a quality control review process, which involved both automated and manual processes. The dataset is limited to the summer months (1 May–30 September) due to the uncertainties and complexities of measurement in frozen soils and the freeze–thaw period each year. Data discussed in this publication are available at https://doi.org/10.20383/101.0116, and data beyond 2017 can be requested from the corresponding author.
Highlights
Soil moisture and precipitation are important elements of the hydrological cycle
With respect to soil moisture remote sensing, validation studies have been performed for soil moisture retrievals derived from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) (Champagne et al, 2010) and retrievals derived from the AMSR-2 (Bindlish et al, 2018)
Further it has been used for validation of soil moisture retrievals from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (e.g. Champagne et al, 2016; Djamai et al, 2015) and the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission (e.g. Chan et al, 2016; Colliander et al, 2017), largely demonstrating statistically significant correlations to observed soil moisture anomalies
Summary
Soil moisture and precipitation are important elements of the hydrological cycle. While soil moisture constitutes a small portion of the global water cycle, it has a significant influence on atmospheric and hydrologic processes. Soil moisture is highly variable across a landscape, being influenced by atmospheric conditions (e.g. precipitation, evaporation), landscape variability (e.g. topography, soil characteristics), and vegetation. E. Tetlock et al.: An 11-year (2007–2017) soil moisture and precipitation dataset network sites allows for validation of remote-sensing products or hydrological models at a range of spatial scales. With respect to soil moisture remote sensing, validation studies have been performed for soil moisture retrievals derived from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer–Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) (Champagne et al, 2010) and retrievals derived from the AMSR-2 (Bindlish et al, 2018). Further it has been used for validation of soil moisture retrievals from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission To continue the development of new applications and opportunities that make use of soil moisture data for this environment, the release and description of the collected soil moisture and precipitation datasets to the broader public is of importance and the purpose of this paper
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