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Daily soil moisture maps for the UK (2016-2023) at 2 km resolution

The data consist of daily maps of volumetric soil moisture predicted by a model based on a network of cosmic-ray neutron sensors (COSMOS-UK), the National River Flow Archive (NRFA) and remotely-sensed data. Maps cover the UK and Ireland at 2 km resolution in the Ordnance Survey National Grid (OSGB) projection. Maps are produced in near-real time, lagging by about one week. Data are available from early 2016 to 2023, on a daily basis. The model was calibrated on a network of cosmic-ray neutron sensors (COSMOS-UK) and remotely-sensed soil moisture data. A key parameter was estimated from the national-scale spatial pattern in the catchment response to rainfall seen in the National River Flow Archive (NRFA) data. Precipitation and humidity data to drive the model came from the Met Office High Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction model (NWP-UKV) which incorporates the C-band rainfall radar network. The maps have a variety of uses in hydrology and elsewhere, for example as inputs to ecosystem models of greenhouse gas exchange, where soil moisture affects numerous processes. The modelling was carried out as part of UK-SCAPE Virtual Survey Lab, and the NERC project "Detection and Attribution of Regional Emissions (DARE-UK)". There are some gaps in the time series of meteorological and remote sensing inputs, and data are unavailable for these days. The NRFA data are only available for Great Britain, so estimates in Ireland and continental Europe will be less accurate. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/5aa8c5b4-4485-4954-b5c3-18d937a418f7

Simple

Date (Publication)
2024-05-08
Identifier
https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/5aa8c5b4-4485-4954-b5c3-18d937a418f7
Identifier
doi: / 10.5285/5aa8c5b4-4485-4954-b5c3-18d937a418f7
Other citation details
Levy, P.E. (2024). Daily soil moisture maps for the UK (2016-2023) at 2 km resolution. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre 10.5285/5aa8c5b4-4485-4954-b5c3-18d937a418f7
Author
  UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Levy, P.E.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8505-1901
Custodian
  NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
Point of contact
  UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Levy, P.E.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8505-1901
Publisher
  NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
Owner
  UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
  • Soil
GEMET - Concepts, version 4.1.3
  • soil moisture
  • soil water
  • soil
  • modelling
  • hydrology
  • atmospheric precipitation
  • remote sensing
  • catchment
  • mapping
  • soil moisture
  • soil water
  • soil
  • modelling
  • hydrology
  • atmospheric precipitation
  • remote sensing
  • catchment
  • mapping
Keywords
  • Soil
  • Hydrology
  • Mapping
  • soil water retention curves
  • rainfall
  • rainfall radar
  • hydrological modelling
  • NRFA
  • ASCAT
  • SCAT-SAR
  • soil water retention curves
  • rainfall
  • rainfall radar
  • hydrological modelling
  • NRFA
  • ASCAT
  • SCAT-SAR
  • UK
Access constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints
Registration is required to access this data
Use constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints
This resource is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence
Use constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints
If you reuse this data, you should cite: Levy, P.E. (2024). Daily soil moisture maps for the UK (2016-2023) at 2 km resolution. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre https://doi.org/10.5285/5aa8c5b4-4485-4954-b5c3-18d937a418f7
Spatial representation type
grid Grid
Distance
2000  urn:ogc:def:uom:EPSG::9001
Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Character set
utf8 UTF8
Topic category
  • Environment
Begin date
2016-01-01
End date
2023-12-31
N
S
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Unique resource identifier
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid
Distribution format
  • TIFF ()

Distributor
  NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
OnLine resource
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dataset Dataset
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dataset

Conformance result

Date (Publication)
2010-12-08
Statement
We developed a statistical model of soil moisture, calibrated on a network of cosmic-ray neutron sensors in the UK. We found that applying an exponentially-weighted moving-average filter effectively linearised the effect of precipitation, so we could form a simple linear model. With this, we integrated remotely-sensed soil moisture data. To extrapolate across the whole country, we inferred information on the soil water retention properties from daily water balance data from approximately 1200 catchments with wide coverage. We used a Bayesian approach to allow the uncertainty from the calibration at 40 sites to be propagated through the extrapolation on a grid covering the whole UK. The Met Office High Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction model (NWP-UKV), which incorporates the C-band rainfall radar network, provides very detailed data on the variation in precipitation which arises from the sporadic nature of rainfall events and interactions with orography in near-real time, to predict small-scale, short-term variation in soil moisture.
File identifier
5aa8c5b4-4485-4954-b5c3-18d937a418f7 XML
Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Character set
ISO/IEC 8859-1 (also known as Latin 1) 8859 Part 1
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset
Hierarchy level name
dataset
Date stamp
2025-11-13T16:22:33
Metadata standard name
UK GEMINI
Metadata standard version
2.3
Point of contact
  NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg , Lancaster , LA1 4AP , UK
https://eidc.ac.uk/
 
 

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Spatial extent

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Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
Soil

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