Water storage variations in a forest during a sequence of dry years: integrative monitoring with a superconducting gravimeter

Terrestrial gravimetry allows for integrative measurements of mass changes associated with water storage variations in all storage compartments above and below the Earth surface. Superconducting gravimeters (SGs) currently are the most precise instruments for continuous monitoring of gravity change. Their footprint typically covers a radius of about 1 km around the instrument, with most of the signal originating from within the first 100 meters. We installed a SG (iGrav033) in a mixed pine-beech-oak forest in the TERENO observatory in the lowlands of north-eastern Germany. It is housed in a small field enclosure with less than 1 m² base area, on top of a stable concrete pillar. Complementary hydro-meteorological monitoring data are available at the site, including a weather station, a groundwater monitoring well, clusters of soil moisture sensors along deep soil profiles, interception measurements and near-surface soil moisture from Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing. For quantification and correction of the long-term instrumental SG drift, repeated measurements with an FG5 absolute gravimeter were carried out. The gravity residual time series (gravity measurements reduced to the local hydrological effect) covers a sequence of years with below average precipitation, from 2018 to 2022. We show the gravity-based water storage variations in the forested landscape throughout this period, indicating that storage depletion during summer in most years is not fully recovered by the subsequent wetter winter periods. The amplitudes of gravity-based water storage variations tend to exceed those observed by soil moisture sensors in the top meters of the soil and of groundwater. This indicates the value of terrestrial gravimetry in revealing dynamics of the deeper unsaturated zone water storage.