We would kindly thank Giorgio Capello and Marcella Biddoccu for providing us with the new data sets.
The WMO State of Global Water Resources 2022 has been launched with significant improvements over the initial edition, including the addition of soil moisture to the analyzed hydrological cycle components. Within the report, soil moisture anomalies (topsoil, 5 cm) in 2022 are ranked relative to the historical period from 2003 to 2020 on a monthly basis to comprehend near-surface soil moisture patterns. In 2022, anomalies in soil moisture corresponded to variations in river discharge conditions. For example, Europe experienced increased evapotranspiration and decreased soil moisture during the summer, attributed to drought conditions.
“Unfortunately, in situ soil moisture observations could not be used for this edition of the report because they are still sparsely distributed in space and time. The International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) had only 42 locations with data of decent quality, temporal coverage and length of observations in 2022 out of 240 stations that had data for this year. ISMN is working on increasing this number significantly for the next report.” – Matthias Zink, Team lead ISMN (culled from the report)
The report underscores the need to intensity the monitoring of hydrological variables and sharing of data to expand our understanding of the global water cycle, which is increasingly destabilized by climate change.
We are delighted with the contribution of ISMN to this significant report by offering expert advice and consultation.
Monthly anomaly in surface soil moisture in 2022 as ranked with respect to the historical period 2003 – 2020 (source: WMO State of Global Water Resources 2022).
We are happy to inform you, that the german network TERENO has been updated for the last two years.
We would like to thank Heye Bogena and Jürgen Sorg for the data and their support!
The International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) actively participated in the recently concluded European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly meeting which was held between 23rd and 28th of April 2023 in Vienna, Austria. EGU is the largest geoscience event in Europe with over 16,000 participants both onsite and online.
Four members of the ISMN team participated onsite at this year’s EGU while others joined online. The team organised the first ISMN splinter meeting at the EGU 2023 which was well attended by different stakeholders: soil moisture sensor manufacturers, data providers, data users and soil moisture enthusiasts. The splinter meeting aimed to foster connection within the soil moisture community to improve data sharing, knowledge sharing and scientific collaborations.
Aside the splinter meeting, Fay Boehmer also presented ISMN at an EGU 2023 session focusing on the role of subsurface runoff, soil moisture and surface-subsurface feedback in hydrology. In her presentation, she emphasized the role of soil moisture as an essential agriculture, meteorology and hydrology variable. She concluded by highlighting the ISMN efforts towards ensuring access to open and fair in-situ soil moisture data and encouraged a community-wide participation in the ISMN project.
We are happy to announce that we integrated the XMS-CAT network into ISMN. In Catalonia (Spain) the Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya measures soil moisture and soil temperature at 15 different locations usually in 5, 20, 50 and 100 cm depth. Data is available from Aug 2016 until May 2023.
We would kindly thank Lola Boquera, Agnès Lladós, Jose Antonio Jara and J.Ignasi Herms for providing us with the data and all the relevant information for the implementation!
Monthly anomaly in surface soil moisture in 2022 as ranked with respect to the historical period 2003 – 2020 (source: WMO State of Global Water Resources 2022).
