TY - JOUR
T1 - A dense network of cosmic-ray neutron sensors for soil moisture observation in a highly instrumented pre-Alpine headwater catchment in Germany
AU - Fersch, Benjamin
AU - Francke, Till
AU - Heistermann, Maik
AU - Schrön, Martin
AU - Döpper, Veronika
AU - Jakobi, Jannis
AU - Baroni, Gabriele
AU - Blume, Theresa
AU - Bogena, Heye
AU - Budach, Christian
AU - Gränzig, Tobias
AU - Förster, Michael
AU - Güntner, Andreas
AU - Franssen, Harrie Jan Hendricks
AU - Kasner, Mandy
AU - Köhli, Markus
AU - Kleinschmit, Birgit
AU - Kunstmann, Harald
AU - Patil, Amol
AU - Rasche, Daniel
AU - Scheiffele, Lena
AU - Schmidt, Ulrich
AU - Szulc-Seyfried, Sandra
AU - Weimar, Jannis
AU - Zacharias, Steffen
AU - Zreda, Marek
AU - Heber, Bernd
AU - Kiese, Ralf
AU - Mares, Vladimir
AU - Mollenhauer, Hannes
AU - Völksch, Ingo
AU - Oswald, Sascha
N1 - Funding Information:
The Cosmic Sense research unit, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), addresses the above challenges in a concerted effort with a consortium of eight German partner institutions. In this context, one component of the Cosmic Sense project is the targeted joint operation of a large number of CRNS sensors in a dense observational network. The scientific aims behind these joint field campaigns (JFCs) are
Funding Information:
Financial support. This research has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant no. FOR 2694, Large-Scale and High-Resolution Mapping of Soil Moisture on Field and Catchment Scales – Boosted by Cosmic-Ray Neutrons) and the Helmholtz Association (MOSES and TERENO).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Author(s).
PY - 2020/9/23
Y1 - 2020/9/23
N2 - Monitoring soil moisture is still a challenge: it varies strongly in space and time and at various scales while conventional sensors typically suffer from small spatial support. With a sensor footprint up to several hectares, cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a modern technology to address that challenge. So far, the CRNS method has typically been applied with single sensors or in sparse national-scale networks. This study presents, for the first time, a dense network of 24 CRNS stations that covered, from May to July 2019, an area of just 1 km2: the pre-Alpine Rott headwater catchment in Southern Germany, which is characterized by strong soil moisture gradients in a heterogeneous landscape with forests and grasslands. With substantially overlapping sensor footprints, this network was designed to study root-zone soil moisture dynamics at the catchment scale. The observations of the dense CRNS network were complemented by extensive measurements that allow users to study soil moisture variability at various spatial scales: roving (mobile) CRNS units, remotely sensed thermal images from unmanned areal systems (UASs), permanent and temporary wireless sensor networks, profile probes, and comprehensive manual soil sampling. Since neutron counts are also affected by hydrogen pools other than soil moisture, vegetation biomass was monitored in forest and grassland patches, as well as meteorological variables; discharge and groundwater tables were recorded to support hydrological modeling experiments. As a result, we provide a unique and comprehensive data set to several research communities: to those who investigate the retrieval of soil moisture from cosmic-ray neutron sensing, to those who study the variability of soil moisture at different spatiotemporal scales, and to those who intend to better understand the role of rootzone soil moisture dynamics in the context of catchment and groundwater hydrology, as well as land-atmosphere exchange processes.
AB - Monitoring soil moisture is still a challenge: it varies strongly in space and time and at various scales while conventional sensors typically suffer from small spatial support. With a sensor footprint up to several hectares, cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a modern technology to address that challenge. So far, the CRNS method has typically been applied with single sensors or in sparse national-scale networks. This study presents, for the first time, a dense network of 24 CRNS stations that covered, from May to July 2019, an area of just 1 km2: the pre-Alpine Rott headwater catchment in Southern Germany, which is characterized by strong soil moisture gradients in a heterogeneous landscape with forests and grasslands. With substantially overlapping sensor footprints, this network was designed to study root-zone soil moisture dynamics at the catchment scale. The observations of the dense CRNS network were complemented by extensive measurements that allow users to study soil moisture variability at various spatial scales: roving (mobile) CRNS units, remotely sensed thermal images from unmanned areal systems (UASs), permanent and temporary wireless sensor networks, profile probes, and comprehensive manual soil sampling. Since neutron counts are also affected by hydrogen pools other than soil moisture, vegetation biomass was monitored in forest and grassland patches, as well as meteorological variables; discharge and groundwater tables were recorded to support hydrological modeling experiments. As a result, we provide a unique and comprehensive data set to several research communities: to those who investigate the retrieval of soil moisture from cosmic-ray neutron sensing, to those who study the variability of soil moisture at different spatiotemporal scales, and to those who intend to better understand the role of rootzone soil moisture dynamics in the context of catchment and groundwater hydrology, as well as land-atmosphere exchange processes.
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U2 - 10.5194/essd-12-2289-2020
DO - 10.5194/essd-12-2289-2020
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092446955
VL - 12
SP - 2289
EP - 2309
JO - Earth System Science Data
JF - Earth System Science Data
SN - 1866-3508
IS - 3
ER -