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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #393407
Research Project: From Field to Watershed: Enhancing Water Quality and Management in Agroecosystems through Remote Sensing, Ground Measurements, and Integrative Modeling

Location: Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory

Title: Working toward a National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network: vision, progress, and future directions

Author
item BAKER, B. - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
item Cosh, Michael
item BRUSBERG, M. - US Department Of Agriculture (USDA)
item BOLTEN, J. - National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)
item CALDWELL, T. - Us Geological Survey (USGS)
item CONNOLLY, S. - Forest Service (FS)
item GOBLE, P. - Colorado State University
item MEYERS, T. - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
item OCHSNER, T. - Oklahoma State University
item QUIRING, S.M. - The Ohio State University
item SVOBODA, M. - University Of Nebraska
item SKUMANICH, M. - Collaborator
item WOLOSZYN, M. - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Submitted to: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/1/2022
Publication Date: 12/1/2022
Citation: Baker, B., Cosh, M.H., Brusberg, M., Bolten, J., Caldwell, T., Connolly, S., Goble, P., Meyers, T., Ochsner, T., Quiring, S., Svoboda, M., Skumanich, M., Woloszyn, M. 2022. Working toward a National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network: vision, progress, and future directions. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 103(12):E2719–E2732. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0178.1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0178.1

Interpretive Summary: Soil moisture monitoring across the continental U.S. provides a valuable resource for understanding the water, energy, and carbon cycles of North America. In situ monitoring provides the best long term reference point for studies on the processes controlling these cycles. However, there is a lack of quality soil moisture data at a sufficient density to really understand the complex interactions between landscape parameters and physical processes. The National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network is an effort to provide a community of practice and coordinator for soil moisture monitoring in a cohesive and productive way. This will hopefully improve our understanding of soil moisture for many different applications and decision support systems

Technical Abstract: Soil moisture impacts our everyday lives without most people thinking about it. The water, energy, and carbon cycles all depend on soil moisture as a critical land surface parameter influencing each cycle. This means that natural resources and the economic activities that depend on them can be directly impacted by soil moisture levels in a way that is parallel to impacts from more commonly recognized climatic factors such as precipitation, temperature, and so forth. Soil moisture can be estimated by several methods, including in situ monitoring, remote sensing, and modeling. These each come with a cost along with unique limitations of accuracy and latency. Yet, taken together these three methods of estimation have the potential to provide a comprehensive picture of soil moisture levels to support a wide range of applications such as improved drought and flood monitoring, water resource management, agricultural planning, and fire danger ratings. The National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network is a federally-led, multi-institution effort to capitalize on this wide ranging opportunity