European Surface Moisture EXperiment (EuroSMEX)
Soil moisture and land evaporation are two key essential climate variables (ECV). They affect the exchange of land moisture and energy with the atmosphere, and play a key role in the development of droughts and heatwaves in summer in both present and future climate. Since 2018, the EuroSMEX project is monitoring land evaporation and soil moisture at 11 grassland stations in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Set-up
The set-up of each EuroSMEX station consists of a external page SFL-600 mini lysimeter for land evaporation monitoring and a TDR (time domain reflectometry) external page soil moisture station, each providing volumetric soil water content at 6 depths (5, 15, 30, 50, 75 and 100 cm).
Contacts
Supervision: Prof. Sonia I. Seneviratne
Data and coordination: Dr. Dominik Michel
Publications
Ruth, C. E., Michel, D., Hirschi, M., Seneviratne, S. I. (2018): Comparative Study of a Long-Established Large Weighing Lysimeter and a State-of-the-Art Mini-lysimeter. VZJ 17(1). doi:10.2136/vzj2017.01.0026.