LAB-net

In Chile, remote sensing applications related to soil moisture and evapotranspiration estimates have increased during the last decades because of the drought and the water use conflicts which generate a strong interest on water demand. To address these problems on water balance in large scales by using remote sensing imagery, LAB-net was created as the first soil moisture network located in Chile over four different land cover types. These land cover types are vineyard and olive orchards located in a semi-arid region of Copiapó Valley, a well irrigated raspberry crop located in the central zone of of Tinguiririca Valley and a green grass rangeland located Austral zone of Chile. Over each site, a well implemented meteorological station is continuously measuring a 5 minute intervals above the following parameters: soil moisture and temperature at two ground levels (5 and 20 cm), air temperature and relative humidity, net radiation, global radiation, brightness surface temperature (8 – 14 µm), rainfall and ground fluxes. This is the first approach of an integrated soil moisture network in Chile. The data generated by this network is freely available for any research or scientific purpose related to current and future soil moisture satellite missions.