Summary
This paper describes the establishment and first-year operation of the Raam regional soil moisture monitoring network in the Netherlands, a 15-site instrumentation programme designed to provide water managers with reliable in situ measurements of soil water availability and storage capacity. Decagon 5TM sensors were deployed at five depths across agricultural and grassland sites, with soil-specific laboratory calibration achieving 0.02 m³ m⁻³ accuracy. The work provides a methodological foundation for water resource management in a region subject to seasonal water scarcity and excess, and offers ground-truth data for validation of remote sensing and hydrological model outputs.
UK applicability
The methodology and instrumentation approach is directly transferable to UK conditions, particularly for water-scarce regions in the south and east or areas prone to winter-spring waterlogging. UK water managers and environmental regulators could adopt similar monitoring networks to support catchment-scale water availability assessments and climate adaptation planning.
Key measures
Soil volumetric water content (m³ m⁻³) at depths of 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 cm; soil temperature; phreatic groundwater levels; meteorological data; soil physical characteristics; sensor calibration accuracy
Outcomes reported
The study established and described a soil moisture profile monitoring network across 15 sites (14 agricultural fields and 1 natural grassland) in the Raam region, equipped with multi-depth sensors measuring soil moisture and temperature. The network collected one year of baseline measurements (April 2016–April 2017) with soil-specific sensor calibration achieving 0.02 m³ m⁻³ accuracy, alongside supplementary meteorological, groundwater and geohydrological data.
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