“…Soil moisture variability has been widely studied in relation to mean soil moisture (Bell et al., 1980; Famiglietti et al., 2008; Irmak et al., 2022; Rosenbaum et al., 2012), and in relation to the spatially variable soil properties, vegetation cover, and topography as the immediate causes of this soil moisture variability (Albertson & Montaldo, 2003; Lawrence & Hornberger, 2007; Manns et al., 2014; Pan & Peters‐Lidard, 2008; Schlüter et al., 2013; Teuling & Troch, 2005; Vereecken et al., 2007). Teuling and Troch (2005) successfully modeled soil moisture variability in a heterogeneous soil at field scale up to small catchment scale by accounting for variability in the saturated hydraulic conductivity, maximum land cover, porosity, and pore size distribution.…”