Progress in the community effort Joint Assessment of Soil Moisture Indicators for Southern South America

ERNESTO H. BERBERY; ADRIANA BASUALDO; OMAR V. MÜLLER; DANILO DADAMIA; ALVARO SOLDANO; H. KARSZEMBAUM; F. GRINGS

Congreso; Earth Observation for Water Cycle Science; 2015

The Joint Assessment of Soil Moisture Indicators (JASMIN) for south eastern South America is a community effort started in 2013 that includes members of several regional government and academic institutions. Its objective is to promote the development of reliable past and present soil moisture products. The working group seeks to identify strengths and weaknesses of different soil moisture estimates, and to examine ways of harmonizing them into a consistent product that will be easier to interpret than the individual approximations. The estimates of soil moisture will contribute to a system for monitoring agricultural droughts and excesses, with a direct benefit to potential users in the agricultural sector as well as in the greater scientific community. JASMIN has developed adocumentation of the different products and methods, which include observational networks, empirical balances, land  surface and hydrologic models (coupled and uncoupled) and satellite estimates. Also documented are the protocols followed by each groupto archive their datasets. A test with one month worth of data was used to identify and correct flaws in the overall approach. JASMIN has now entered one of its major activities with the assessment of products for a two year period. At the core of this assessment is an in-situ network developed and maintained by the Argentine National Space Agency that has been measuring  continuously since 2012 and has grown to have about 40 Hydra Probe II sensors at present. In-situ observations and model simulations of soil moisture rely on an adequate identification of the soils properties. Field work is being carried out to calibrate the sensors to the actual soiltype where they are installed. LSMs and other models typically use global datasets of soils that tend to have inaccuracies at regional scales that in turn affect the quality of the soil moisture estimates. Several regional organizations are working to develop more precise maps of soils and their properties. JASMIN is  performing a survey to identify the most up to date soil information and negotiate its availability to finally associate with the soil moisture estimates.