SMEX03 Regional Ground Soil Moisture Data for Alabama

NASA's SMEX03 Regional Ground Soil Moisture Data: Alabama, Version 1 contains gravimetric soil moisture and soil bulk density measurements. Data collection occurred during the Soil Moisture Experiment 2003 (SMEX03) in June and July of 2003 across northern Alabama and southern Tennessee, USA. This dataset is part of a field campaign designed to support satellite soil moisture validation.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite soil moisture retrievals from missions like AMSR-E using ground-truth gravimetric measurements.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of soil bulk density and moisture content across agricultural and forested regions in Alabama and Tennessee.
• Supporting land surface and hydrological model development with field-collected soil property data from a specific summer campaign.
• Studying the relationship between soil moisture and bulk density for different land cover types during the 2003 growing season.

Strengths

• Data originates from a controlled NASA field experiment (SMEX03), ensuring structured collection methods.
• Provides fundamental physical soil properties (gravimetric moisture, bulk density) measured directly in the field.
• Temporal coverage is precisely defined for the intensive campaign period of June-July 2003.

Limitations

• Key details like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable from all sources.
• A significant conflict exists in the 'last updated' metadata, with dates ranging from 2003 to 2026 across platforms.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without clarifying terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Field-collected gravimetric soil samples during the Soil Moisture Experiment 2003 (SMEX03).

Time Range

June 2003 to July 2003

Freshness

2026-03-12 19:48:56.511169

Geography

Northern Alabama and southern Tennessee, USA