SMEX03: Soil Moisture, Meteorology, and Vegetation in Brazil

SMEX03 provides a collection of soil moisture, vegetation, and meteorological data for Brazil, accompanied by an extensive set of regional photographs. The dataset's documentation was provided solely by the Principal Investigator(s) and was not further developed or reviewed by NSIDC, which may limit support. Its cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA Earthdata indicates its established use in earth science research.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite-derived soil moisture estimates using in-situ soil moisture and temperature measurements.
• Analyzing the relationship between precipitation, humidity, and soil water content for hydrological modeling.
• Studying vegetation cover dynamics in relation to meteorological conditions and soil properties.
• Using the photographic collection to document and contextualize regional study areas and land surface conditions.

Strengths

• Contains a multimodal collection of data, including soil measurements, meteorological variables, vegetation data, and photographs.
• Hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (Data.gov and NASA Earthdata), indicating its importance and established use.
• The dataset includes specific variables like soil bulk density, soil moisture water content, soil temperature, precipitation amount, and humidity indicators.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing or conflicting: the last updated date differs between sources (2003 vs. 2026), and no row counts or file sizes are provided.
• Documentation support is explicitly limited, as it was provided solely by the Principal Investigator(s) and not reviewed by the hosting agency (NSIDC).
• Column names are listed as 'unknown' on some platforms, hindering precise understanding of the data structure.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:58:51.092931

Geography

Brazil