Fealy, Rowan and McCarthy, Timothy and Andrade Moral, Rafael De and Nair, Ajay Sathiyan and Li, Dazhi and Ishola, Kazeem A. and Fealy, Reamonn M. and O'Sullivan, Lilian (2024) SoMoSAT – Soil Moisture Estimates from Satellite-based Earth Observations. Report No 460. Technical Report. Environmental Protection Agency Ireland (EPA), Johnstown Castle , Co Wexford.

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Abstract

Soil moisture interactions for climate, and their relevance for understanding hydrological, agricultural and ecological processes are recognised and acknowledged as important. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of soil water observations globally. Even at the regional and country scale, only limited observations are available. This research uses machine learning with remote sensing data and data from deployed in-situ soil moisture sensors to derive a harmonised soil moisture product for Ireland. Based on independent tests of the models it was found to largely reproduce the available soil moisture measurements. A key output from the research was the deployment of a number of in situ soil moisture sensors, which will support a national initiative to deploy an integrated network of soil moisture sensors across Ireland. The research highlights the need for an integrated monitoring infrastructure to facilitate consistently measuring soil moisture in Ireland.

Item Type:	Monograph (Technical Report)
Additional Information:	The authors would like to acknowledge the members of the project steering committee, namely Luca Zappa (TU Wien), Dr Klara Finkele (Met Éireann), Oliver Nicholson (Office of Public Works), Kevin Lydon (EPA), Dymphna Kehoe (Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine), Patrick Morrissey (EPA) and Richard McDonnell (Office of Public Works). Thanks are also extended to EPA Project Managers Oonagh Monahan and Karen Roche for their assistance in steering the project to completion. The authors are also grateful to Tony O’Leary (Met Éireann) and James Rambaud (Teagasc) for their time and assistance in deploying the soil moisture sensors at selected sites. The authors would also like to thank Gary Lanigan (Teagasc) and Matt Saunders (Trinity College Dublin) for providing in situ data, and Stuart Green (Teagasc) for providing the ISMON map. The authors also would like to acknowledge the Copernicus Data Store and ECMWF for use of the ERA-5 Land model data and UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology who own the COSMOS-UK data. COSMOS-UK is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability.
Keywords:	soil moisture; habitat mapping; ecosystem productivity estimation; ground water resource estimation;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Mathematics and Statistics Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > National Centre for Geocomputation, NCG Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, MUSSI
Item ID:	18911
Identification Number:	978-1-80009-200-6
Depositing User:	Tim McCarthy
Date Deposited:	23 Sep 2024 08:22
Publisher:	Environmental Protection Agency Ireland (EPA)
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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