The integrated water balance and soil data set of the Rollesbroich hydrological observatory

Abstract

Abstract. The Rollesbroich headwater catchment located in western Germany is a densely instrumented hydrological observatory and part of the TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories) initiative. The measurements acquired in this observatory present a comprehensive data set that contains key hydrological fluxes in addition to important hydrological states and properties. Meteorological data (i.e., precipitation, air temperature, air humidity, radiation components, and wind speed) are continuously recorded and actual evapotranspiration is measured using the eddy covariance technique. Runoff is measured at the catchment outlet with a gauging station. In addition, spatiotemporal variations in soil water content and temperature are measured at high resolution with a wireless sensor network (SoilNet). Soil physical properties were determined using standard laboratory procedures from samples taken at a large number of locations in the catchment. This comprehensive data set can be used to validate remote sensing retrievals and hydrological models, to improve the understanding of spatial temporal dynamics of soil water content, to optimize data assimilation and inverse techniques for hydrological models, and to develop upscaling and downscaling procedures of soil water content information. The complete data set is freely available online (http://www.tereno.net, doi:10.5880/ TERENO.2016.001, doi:10.5880/TERENO.2016.004, doi:10.5880/TERENO.2016 and additionally referenced by three persistent identifiers securing the long-term data and metadata availability.

Assimilation of High‐Resolution Soil Moisture Data Into an Integrated Terrestrial Model for a Small‐Scale Head‐Water Catchment

“…This increases measurement volume and precision and helps to avoid data inconsistencies (e.g., contact issues with the soil matrix). Additional technical details can be found in Qu et al () and Qu et al (). A long‐term evaluation of the SWCs measured with the SPADE sensors at the study site indicated a drift in SWC values for individual SoilNet locations.…”

The WASCAL Hydrometeorological Observatory in the Sudan Savanna of Burkina Faso and Ghana

“…To tackle this issue, various hydrological observatories with enhanced facilities were established in different regions of the world (Blöschl et al, 2016). Examples are the hydrological observatories (Koch et al, 2016; Qu et al, 2016; Wollschläger et al, 2017) of the Network of Terrestrial Environmental Observatories in Germany (TERENO; Zacharias et al, 2011; Bogena et al, 2012; Kunkel et al, 2013), the Hydrological Observatory and Exploratorium (HOBE) for the Skjern catchment in Denmark (Jensen and Illangasekare, 2011), the Hydrological Open Air Laboratory (HOAL) for the Alps in Austria (Blöschl et al, 2016), and the Cévennes‐Vivarais Mediterranean Hydrometeorological Observatory in Southern France (Boudevillain et al, 2011). In contrast with the traditional concept of research catchments in hydrology, hydrological observatories are usually based on long‐term equipment to provide information beyond the duration of research projects and with a stronger focus on interdisciplinary research (Blöschl et al, 2016).…”

A dense network of cosmic-ray neutron sensors for soil moisture observation in a pre-alpine headwater catchment in Germany

“…For the permanent installation area, the values for the solid permittivity s = 3.29 and the porosity of the soil n = 0.63 were derived from a laboratory analysis of nine representative soil samples, following the methodology proposed by Qu et al (2016).…”