Feb. 18th, 2020

Community Review for the National Soil Moisture Strategy

To: Members of the National Soil Moisture Network (NSMN) Community

The NSMN Executive Committee is pleased to announce the opening of a community review and comment period for the draft document: “A Strategy for the National Soil Moisture Network: Coordinated, High-Quality, Nationwide, Soil Moisture Information for the Public Good.” 

This Strategy Document was called for in the NIDIS Reauthorization of 2018. It is intended to review the current status of soil moisture monitoring and reporting in the U.S., and to develop a strategy for a national coordinated soil moisture monitoring network, involving federal agencies, regional and state mesonets, data providers, researchers, user groups, and others. As a member of the larger community interested in soil moisture monitoring, we welcome your review and feedback.  

The draft Strategy can be downloaded as follows: (Note - to make file size manageable over email, these drafts include images with reduced resolution.)

The deadline for comments is Friday, February 21, 2020. Please feel free to provide your comments using “Track Changes” in MS-Word, or via a separate email. Based on community input, we will then revise the Strategy and prepare it for submission to NOAA leadership for review. Once finalized, the Strategy will be posted to Drought.gov, where it will serve as a living document within the NSMN initiative.

Soil Moisture Strategy Document (word)

Soil Moisture Strategy Document (pdf)

The draft Strategy Document contains six chapters totaling 76 pages. Should your review time be limited, you may wish to focus your review on Chapter 6: Implementation of the NSMN: The Path Forward. 

Please forward your comments by COB Friday, February 21, 2020 to: Marina.Skumanich@noaa.gov. 

In addition, if you know of other individuals who should be included in this review, please forward their names & emails to us, so we can add them to our community mailing list and send them this notice.

If you have any questions, please contact: Michael.Cosh@usda.gov or Marina.Skumanich@noaa.gov.

Sincerely,

The NSMN Executive Committee

Apply by Feb. 20 for Kirkham Conference Travel Grant (SSSA members only)
SSSA announces a Travel Grant Award Program for early career and grad student members participating in the Kirkham Conference.

Apply for up to $20,000 in ASF-supported travel grants for grad students, post-docs, and early career members to attend the 2020 Kirkham Conference Sept. 14-17 at the Kruger National Park (Skukuza Rest Camp), South Africa. For more info and to apply by Feb. 20, visit:
www.soils.org/awards/view/194

Figure: Illustration of aqueous habitat fragmentation and carrying capacity in relation to climatic water contents from: Bickel, S., Or, D. Soil bacterial diversity mediated by microscale aqueous-phase processes across biomes. Nat Commun 11, 116 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13966-w

Fig: Graphical abstract from: Zhuang, R.; Zeng, Y.; Manfreda, S.; Su, Z. Quantifying Long-term Land Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture over Tibetan Plateau. Remote Sens. 2020, 12, 509. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12030509

See also:

Please forward any worth-mentioning publications to ismc.coord@gmail.com.