Monitoring Stations

In addition to the available permanent soil moisture monitoring network provided by OzNet (blue dots in figure below), supplementary temporary monitoring stations have been installed during the AACES-2 campaign.

Schematic of the temporary monitoring station network

Due to limited equipment, the temporary stations were moved across the study transect, with monitoring stations set up during the teams site reconnaissance, which was scheduled at least the day before the actual airborne observation of the focus farm. These short-term monitoring stations have been instrumented with a raingauge, thermal infrared sensor, leaf wetness sensor (MEA LWS v1.1), two soil moisture sensors (Delta-T Thetaprobes; 0-5cm and 20-25cm) and four soil temperature sensors (MEA6507A; 2.5cm, 5cm, 15cm and 40cm depth) in order to provide time series data during the sampling period.

Schematic of the general temporary monitoring station setup

Northern monitoring station at P05F09_St18.

Such measurements can be used for identifying the presence or absence of dew, and verifying the assumptions that i) effective temperature has not changed throughout the course of the aircraft measurements; ii) vegetation and soil temperature are in equilibrium; and iii) soil moisture has not changed significantly during ground sampling. The details and an example of a supplementary monitoring station in the focus farm transect are indicated above.

The location of Temporary Monitoring Stations

The locations of all temporary monitoring stations per patch are shown below. By clicking the icon of an individual monitoring station, photographs of the site and plots of the measured data can be browsed. In order to download the collected data please go to the Download Centre.