TY - JOUR

T1 - The International Soil Moisture Network

T2 - Serving Earth system science for over a decade

AU - Dorigo, Wouter

AU - Himmelbauer, Irene

AU - Aberer, Daniel

AU - Schremmer, Lukas

AU - Petrakovic, Ivana

AU - Zappa, Luca

AU - Preimesberger, Wolfgang

AU - Xaver, Angelika

AU - Annor, Frank

AU - Ardö, Jonas

AU - Baldocchi, Dennis

AU - Bitelli, Marco

AU - Blöschl, Günter

AU - Bogena, Heye

AU - Brocca, Luca

AU - Calvet, Jean Christophe

AU - Camarero, J. Julio

AU - Capello, Giorgio

AU - Choi, Minha

AU - Cosh, Michael C.

AU - Van De Giesen, Nick

AU - Hajdu, Istvan

AU - Ikonen, Jaakko

AU - Jensen, Karsten H.

AU - Kanniah, Kasturi Devi

AU - De Kat, Ileen

AU - Kirchengast, Gottfried

AU - Kumar Rai, Pankaj

AU - Kyrouac, Jenni

AU - Larson, Kristine

AU - Liu, Suxia

AU - Loew, Alexander

AU - Moghaddam, Mahta

AU - Martínez Fernández, José

AU - Mattar Bader, Cristian

AU - Morbidelli, Renato

AU - Musial, Jan P.

AU - Osenga, Elise

AU - Palecki, Michael A.

AU - Pellarin, Thierry

AU - Petropoulos, George P.

AU - Pfeil, Isabella

AU - Powers, Jarrett

AU - Robock, Alan

AU - Rüdiger, Christoph

AU - Rummel, Udo

AU - Strobel, Michael

AU - Su, Zhongbo

AU - Sullivan, Ryan

AU - Tagesson, Torbern

AU - Varlagin, Andrej

AU - Vreugdenhil, Mariette

AU - Walker, Jeffrey

AU - Wen, Jun

AU - Wenger, Fred

AU - Wigneron, Jean Pierre

AU - Woods, Mel

AU - Yang, Kun

AU - Zeng, Yijian

AU - Zhang, Xiang

AU - Zreda, Marek

AU - DIetrich, Stephan

AU - Gruber, Alexander

AU - Van Oevelen, Peter

AU - Wagner, Wolfgang

AU - Scipal, Klaus

AU - Drusch, Matthias

AU - Sabia, Roberto

N1 - Funding Information: In this study, we reviewed the first decade of operations of the ISMN. Besides satisfactorily fulfilling its initial target, i.e. supporting satellite soil moisture product validation and calibration, many additional more or less foreseen uses have emerged. In addition, an increasing number of services and product development chains have routinely included the use of ISMN data in their operational structure. The ISMN started as research activity funded by ESA, and ever since, ESA have provided continuous financial support for ongoing research, development, and operations. In spring 2021, a milestone was achieved when the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure announced that it will commit to permanently fund the ISMN operations and development from late 2021. The execution will be with the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) and the International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC) based in Koblenz, Germany. At the same time, all network data sets have always been freely contributed by dedicated researchers. To guarantee the availability of these resources for climate and environmental monitoring also for the next decade, we plead with governments and international bodies for systematic funding of its participating data-providing networks too. Funding Information: The Cosmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System (COSMOS; Zreda et al., 2012) started in 2009 with a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation as a 4-year project for demonstration of the then-new technology of sensing soil moisture with cosmogenic neutrons (Zreda et al., 2008). On the completion of the project, the network had 60 sites, most of them in the USA and a few in South America, Europe, and Africa. The network produces hourly soil moisture data, available in real time, to all, without restrictions. After the project funding ended in 2013, the network operations continued with the support of Quaesta Instruments, a private company. The current status is active, but the sensors are being relocated and repurposed. Funding Information: The former German UDC_SMOS network was hosted by the Department of Geography at the University of Munich, in co-operation with the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture, and funded by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). It was located in grassland in the Bavarian region around Munich as an official European SMOS calibration/validation test site. In total, 11 stations provided soil moisture data from 2007 until 2011, up to 40 cm depth, as measured by several types of sensors (Loew et al., 2009; Schlenz et al., 2012a). Funding Information: Acknowledgements. The authors greatly acknowledge the financial support provided by ESA through various projects including the following: SMOSnet International Soil Moisture Network (grant no. 4000102722/10/NL/FF/fk) and Operations (grant no. 3-13185/NL/FF/fk), IDEAS+ (grant no. TVUK/AG/18/02082), QA4EO (grant no. TPZV/UK/AG/19/02321), and QA4SM (grant no. 4000135204/21//I-BG). Additional funding for the methodological advances has been received from the EU FP7 EartH2Observe project (grant no. 603608), the EU H2020 GROW project (grant no. 690199), and the QA4SM project funded by the Austrian Space Applications Programme 14 (grant no. 866004). Network funding has been provided by TWIGA (grant no. 776691). Andrej Varla-gin has been supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 19-04-01234-a). Alexander Gruber also received funding (grant nos. FWO-1224320N and FWO-1530019N). We acknowledge the endorsement of various international bodies, including CEOS, WCRP GEWEX, GCOS, GTN-H, and GEO. We greatly thank all staff members from the participating networks for their continued technical support. The authors acknowledge TU Wien Bibliothek for financial support through its open-access funding programme. Funding Information: Financial support. The authors greatly acknowledge the financial support provided by ESA through various projects including the following: SMOSnet International Soil Moisture Network (grant no. 4000102722/10/NL/FF/fk) and Operations (grant no. 3-13185/NL/FF/fk), IDEAS+ (grant no. TVUK/AG/18/02082), QA4EO (grant no. TPZV/UK/AG/19/02321), and QA4SM (grant no. 4000135204/21//I-BG). Additional funding for the methodological advances has been received from the EU FP7 EartH2Observe project (grant no. 603608), the EU H2020 GROW project (grant no. 690199), and the QA4SM project funded by the Austrian Space Applications Programme 14 (grant no. 866004). Network funding has been provided by TWIGA (grant no. 776691). Andrej Varlagin has been supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 19-04-01234-a). Alexander Gruber also received funding (grant nos. FWO-1224320N and FWO-1530019N). TU Wien Bibliothek has provided financial support through its open-access funding programme. Publisher Copyright: © Author(s) 2021.

PY - 2021/11/9

Y1 - 2021/11/9

N2 - In 2009, the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) was initiated as a community effort, funded by the European Space Agency, to serve as a centralised data hosting facility for globally available in situ soil moisture measurements . The ISMN brings together in situ soil moisture measurements collected and freely shared by a multitude of organisations, harmonises them in terms of units and sampling rates, applies advanced quality control, and stores them in a database. Users can freely retrieve the data from this database through an online web portal (https://ismn.earth/en/, last access: 28 October 2021). Meanwhile, the ISMN has evolved into the primary in situ soil moisture reference database worldwide, as evidenced by more than 3000 active users and over 1000 scientific publications referencing the data sets provided by the network. As of July 2021, the ISMN now contains the data of 71 networks and 2842 stations located all over the globe, with a time period spanning from 1952 to the present. The number of networks and stations covered by the ISMN is still growing, and approximately 70 % of the data sets contained in the database continue to be updated on a regular or irregular basis. The main scope of this paper is to inform readers about the evolution of the ISMN over the past decade, including a description of network and data set updates and quality control procedures. A comprehensive review of the existing literature making use of ISMN data is also provided in order to identify current limitations in functionality and data usage and to shape priorities for the next decade of operations of this unique community-based data repository.

AB - In 2009, the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) was initiated as a community effort, funded by the European Space Agency, to serve as a centralised data hosting facility for globally available in situ soil moisture measurements . The ISMN brings together in situ soil moisture measurements collected and freely shared by a multitude of organisations, harmonises them in terms of units and sampling rates, applies advanced quality control, and stores them in a database. Users can freely retrieve the data from this database through an online web portal (https://ismn.earth/en/, last access: 28 October 2021). Meanwhile, the ISMN has evolved into the primary in situ soil moisture reference database worldwide, as evidenced by more than 3000 active users and over 1000 scientific publications referencing the data sets provided by the network. As of July 2021, the ISMN now contains the data of 71 networks and 2842 stations located all over the globe, with a time period spanning from 1952 to the present. The number of networks and stations covered by the ISMN is still growing, and approximately 70 % of the data sets contained in the database continue to be updated on a regular or irregular basis. The main scope of this paper is to inform readers about the evolution of the ISMN over the past decade, including a description of network and data set updates and quality control procedures. A comprehensive review of the existing literature making use of ISMN data is also provided in order to identify current limitations in functionality and data usage and to shape priorities for the next decade of operations of this unique community-based data repository.

U2 - 10.5194/hess-25-5749-2021

DO - 10.5194/hess-25-5749-2021

M3 - Review

AN - SCOPUS:85119091250

VL - 25

SP - 5749

EP - 5804

JO - Hydrology and Earth System Sciences

JF - Hydrology and Earth System Sciences

SN - 1027-5606

IS - 11

ER -