The North American Soil Moisture Database: development and applications

Soil moisture is an important variable in the climate system that integrates the combined influence of the atmosphere, land surface and soil. Soil moisture is frequently used for drought monitoring and climate forecasting. However, in situ soil moisture ob servations are not systematically archived and there are relatively few national soil moisture networks. The lack of observed soil moisture data makes it difficult to characterize long-term soil moisture variability and trends. The North American Soil Moisture Database (NASMD) is a new high-quality observational soil moisture database. It includes over 1,800 monitoring stations the United States, Canada and Mexico, making it the largest collections of in situ soil moisture observations in North America. Data are collected from multiple sources, quality controlled and integrated into an online database (soilmoisture.tamu.edu). Here we describe the development of the database, including quality control/quality assurance, standardization and collection of metadata. The utility of the NASMD is demonstrated through an analysis of the inter- and intra- annual variability of soil moisture from multiple networks. The NASMD is a useful tool for drought monitoring and forecasting, calibrating/validating satellites and land surface models, and documenting how soil moisture influences the climate system on seasonal to interannual time scales.