BIFoR site of Mill Haft, Staffordshire, UK. Temperature from Fiber Optics Distributed Temperature Sensor (DTS). Soil moisture from Active DTS technique and from FDR point probes (NERC grant NE/P003486/1)

The data comprise of temperatures (degC) from a fibre optic distributed temperature sensor and soil moisture in the form of volumetric water content (VWC), expressed in m3/m3. The measurements were performed in a vegetated hillslope in Staffordshire, UK, in the context of the NERC funded project DiHPS: A Distributed Heat Pulse Sensor Network for subsurface heat and water fluxes. The site was equipped with: 15xVWC point probes (5TM, Decagon Devices) installed at 5 locations along the hillslope. At each location, 3x5TM probes were inserted in the soil at depths of 0.10m, 0.25m, 0.40m from the soil surface 1,512m of fibre optic cable for Active DTS measurements. The fibre was buried in the soil in three overlapped loops of 504m each at 0.10m, 0.25m, 0.40m. The measurements from the 5TM were used to infer a site specific empirical relation to obtain soil moisture from Active-DTS measurements, following the approach from Sayde et al., WRR, 2010 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241060722_Feasibility_of_soil_moisture_monitoring_with_heated_fiber_optics)