Next Generation USGS Soil Moisture Monitoring Activities to Improve National Water Availability Assessments
Abstract
Soil moisture is a key state variable of the climate system, coupling energy and water exchange to the atmosphere while partitioning precipitation into infiltration and runoff. Soil-water storage (SWS) is an important yet underrepresented component of the water balance, primary because it is difficult to quantify at the appropriate scale. Traditional in situ sensors measure a limited area that reflects local (sub-meter) variability controlled by soil properties, vegetation, and topography. More often, watershed-scale (12-1002 km) soil moisture estimates are needed to improve water-supply forecasting, groundwater recharge estimates, and water availability assessments. In 2020, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Next Generation Water Observing System (NGWOS) began a research and development program to evaluate commonly used soil moisture sensor technologies, wireless networks, and more recent technologies for soil moisture including cosmic ray neutron sensors (CRNS) at test beds located across the nation. This presentation will describe these USGS NGWOS activities including (1) in situ sensor testing and standardization, (2) utilization of long-range, low power radios for monitoring networks, and (3) watershed scale soil moisture mapping combining networks and portable CRNS data in the upper Colorado River Basin. The goal is to advance soil moisture science at the national scale and to improve the adoption of such data into water availability assessments and water resource management.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022AGUFM.H22R1080C