ATDD Featured in EOS Project Update on the National Soil Moisture Network

July 2019

Dr. Bruce Baker, a member of the National Soil Moisture Network (NSMN) Executive Committee, served as a contributing author for a recent EOS project update entitled “Building a One-Stop Shop for Soil Moisture Information.” Baker’s organization is responsible for operating and maintaining the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), a national network of over 140 stations developed by ARL to observe and record meteorological and climate parameters; enabling the determination of long-term trends in boundary layer characteristics. USCRN is one of the cornerstone networks for NSMN, which is tasked with integrating data from multiple existing monitoring networks nationwide in hopes of reducing societal vulnerability to drought. Many of USCRN’s protocols will be utilized to assist in standardizing measurements so that they can be merged together and compared to data acquired via satellites and remote sensing.

ATDD is assisting NOAA’s Integrated Drought Information System, known as NIDIS, the organization ultimately responsible for delivering the NMSN framework to congress. NIDIS utilizes soil moisture and temperature measurements from the USCRN, providing some funding support in return.

Other organizations involved with the NMSN include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Snow Survey and Agricultural Research Service, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and Ohio State, Oklahoma State, and Southern Illinois universities.

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