Project SoMMet - Metrology for multi-scale monitoring of soil moisture

Soil moisture is one of the Essential Climate Variables as defined by the WMO Global Climate Observing System. Several soil moisture observation systems exist on multiple scales, however, poorly harmonized due to the lack of interlinks. There is a need to establish the chain of traceability, the metrological assessment of uncertainties and the harmonisation of soil moisture measurements within the hydrological cycle, on multiple scales ranging from point-scale sensors to satellite remote sensing techniques. In addition, there is an urgent need for real-time, continuous, high-quality, high-resolution and metrologically traceable and harmonised data on soil moisture.

To address these needs, the project SoMMet (Soil Moisture Metrology) has been set up in the framework of the European Partnership on Metrology of EURAMET. The aim of the project is to develop sound metrological tools and establish a metrological foundation for soil moisture measurement methods on multiple scales, supporting the traceability and harmonisation initiatives.

On the point scale (10^-1 m – 10¹ m), novel primary and secondary standards of humidity measurement will be developed specifically for soil samples. On the intermediate range (10² m – 10³ m), the metrological basis of the cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) method will be established. On the large scale (10³ m – 10⁴ m), satellite-based remote sensing techniques will be utilized to derive the soil moisture products. Based on dedicated comparison measurement campaigns, tools for cross-disciplinary harmonisation of the individual methods will be developed. Furthermore, soil moisture data fusion approaches will be researched, aiming at integrating the multi-scale soil moisture measurements to provide new schemes and recommendations to facilitate the generation of high-quality, temporally and spatially consistent soil moisture information useful for land surface sciences and applications.

The project consortium consists of nine National and Designated Metrology Institutes and nine research institutions. It cooperates with other projects and networks currently dealing with soil moisture monitoring and open issues of missing soil moisture harmonisation. The project 21GRD08 SoMMet has received funding from the European Partnership on Metrology, co-financed from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme and by the Participating States.