2023 National Soil Moisture Workshop
Stimulating progress towards realizing the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network's vision was a key goal of the 2023 National Soil Moisture Workshop, held on August 14–17, 2023 at the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, MD. The 2023 National Soil Moisture Workshop was co-hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and NIDIS. This was the 14th consecutive year for the workshop, which was started by the researchers who created the Marena, Oklahoma, In Situ Sensor Testbed (MOISST). It has now grown to be a premier event for sharing soil moisture research and applications.
Video recordings are now available for the workshop presentations. Or, see below for a detailed agenda with links to individual presentations.
2023 Soil Moisture Community Leadership Award Recipient: Dr. Tyson Ochsner
As a highlight of the workshop, the workshop organizing committee and the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (NCSMMN) Coordinating Team awarded Dr. Tyson Ochsner the 2023 Soil Moisture Community Leadership Award, in recognition of his unflagging commitment to building the soil moisture community and to advancing soil moisture monitoring, as well as his highly impactful research applying soil moisture information to urgent natural resource issues. Dr. Ochsner is a Professor of Plant & Soil Sciences at Oklahoma State University. He was one of the founding organizers of both the Marena Oklahoma In Situ Sensor Testbed (MOISST) and the annual National Soil Moisture Workshop. He has also served on the NCSMMN Coordinating Team for several years.
The Soil Moisture Community Leadership Award is presented annually at the National Soil Moisture Workshop to the individual—whether a researcher or practitioner—who demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to building the soil moisture community of practice and delivering soil moisture–related products and services to support the public good.
Workshop Agenda & Presentation Recordings
Time (ET) | Topic | Speaker/Moderator |
|---|---|---|
9:00 am | In-Room Session at National Agricultural Library | Mike Cosh, USDA ARS |
| 1:15 pm | Field Session | Mike Cosh, USDA ARS VIctoria Walker, USDA ARS Todd Caldwell, USGS |
| 4:15 pm | End of Day | |
| Time (ET) | Topic | Speaker/Moderator |
|---|---|---|
| Session 1: Soil Moisture Networks | Moderator: Marina Skumanich | ||
| Session 2: Soil Moisture Networks (Continued): Drought | Moderator: Todd Caldwell | ||
| Lunch Discussion: Soil Moisture Data Quality and Metadata Guidance Documents | Moderator: Marina Skumanich, NIDIS | ||
| Session 3: Data Quality | Moderator: Todd Caldwell | ||
| 9:00 am | USDA Perspectives on the Value of Soil Moisture Observations |
|
| 9:40 am | Soil Moisture Monitoring in the Urban Landscape | Katalin Szlavecz, Johns Hopkins University |
| 9:55 am | Southeastern U.S. Soil Moisture Network Build-Out | Lee Ellenburg, University of Alabama in Huntsville |
| 10:10 am | LoRa Telemetry Network for Soil Moisture Monitoring (recording not available) | Patrick Haluska, U.S. Geological Survey |
| 11:00 am | U.S. Climate Reference Network Status Update | Tilden Meyers, NOAA ARL (virtual) |
| 11:15 am | NRCS Soil Moisture Sensor Platforms | Kent Sutcliffe, USDA NRCS |
| 11:30 am | Real-Time Measurements to Improve Drought Monitoring | Ashish Raval, Synoptic Data |
| 11:45 am | The Role of Soil Moisture in Compounding Droughts and Heatwave Event Intensity and Exposure | Ronald Leeper, NCEI/NC State |
| 12:30 pm | Soil Moisture Data Quality Guidance | Nandita Gaur, University of Georgia |
| 12:50 pm | Soil Moisture Metadata Guidance | Briana Wyatt, Texas A&M University |
| 1:10 pm | Community Discussion and Feedback | |
| 2:30 pm | New Multi-State Soil Moisture Testbeds | Andres Patrignani, Kansas State University |
| 2:45 pm | Developing Tools to Assess Soil Moisture Sensor Accuracy and Variability | Chris Chambers, METER Group |
| 3:00 pm | Evaluating the Utility of Machine Learning to Quality Control Soil Moisture Observations | Garrett Graham, NC Institute for Climate Studies / NOAA NCEI |
| 3:15 pm | Evaluating Eight In Situ Soil Moisture Sensors with a CPN 503DR Hydroprobe | William Brown, Oklahoma State University |
| 3:30 pm | Poster Session | |
| Time (ET) | Topic | Speaker/Moderator |
|---|---|---|
| Session 4: Applications | Moderator: John Bolten | ||
| Session 5: Applications, including Remote-Sensing Applications | Moderator: Peter Goble | ||
| Session 6: Remote-Sensing Applications (Continued) | Moderator: Briana Wyatt | ||
| Session 7: Forest Soil Moisture Monitoring* | Moderator: Scott Jones | ||
| 9:00 am | Keynote: How Soil Moisture Information Improves Drought Risk Protection Provided by the USDA Livestock Forage Disaster Program | Tyson Ochsner, Oklahoma State University |
| 9:30 am | Presentation of National Soil Moisture Community Leadership Award (Recording included at end of Tyson Ochsner's presentation) | |
| 9:45 am | Machine Intelligence for Estimating Soil Water Flux from Soil Moisture Data | Stephen Farrington, Transcend Engineering |
| 10:00 am | A New High-Resolution Soil Moisture Analysis from UFS Land Model | Li Xu, NOAA Climate Prediction Center |
| 10:45 am | Testing the Newhall Water Budget Approach for Predicting Watershed-Scale Soil Moisture in the S. Central US | Matt Levi, University of Georgia |
| 11:00 am | Informing Decision Making Using Ground and Satellite-based Soil Moisture – What We've Learned | John Bolten, NASA |
| 11:15 am | High-Resolution Soil Moisture Mapping of Natural Lands Using an UAS-Based L-Band Radiometer in Sonoma Co., CA (recording not available) | Michelle Stern, USGS |
| 11:30 am | Precision Soil Moisture Monitoring with L-Band Drone Mapping | Robin Kim, University of Virginia |
| 11:50 am | Campbell Scientific–Sponsored Lunch (70 minutes) – Including Community Discussion on Future NSMW Meetings | |
| 1:00 pm | Identifying the Optimal Approach for Developing a 1-km Downscaled Soil Moisture Product for CONUS | Eshita A Eva, Ohio State University (virtual) |
| 1:15 pm | Sustainable L-Band Soil Moisture Measurements from the Muon Small Satellite Constellation | Clara Chew, Muon Space (virtual) |
| 1:30 pm | Using Dense Radar Time Series for Mapping Soil Moisture Trends in Forests | Simon Kraatz, USDA ARS |
| 1:45 pm | The Upper Missouri River Basin Build-out: Transforming Soil Moisture and Snowpack Monitoring | Nathan Edwards, South Dakota Mesonet |
| 2:30 pm | How Soil Moisture Influences Forest Management of the Daniel Boone National Forest | Claudia Cotton, USDA Forest Service Daniel Boone National Forest |
| 2:45 pm | Leveraging the Soil Biome for Soil Moisture: A Tool to Maintain Healthy Forests and Watersheds | Lisa Markovchick, Center for Adaptable Western Landscapes / Northern Arizona University |
| 3:00 pm | Measuring and Modeling Soil Moisture in Complex Terrain | Benjamin Rau, USDA Forest Service |
| 3:15 pm | High (~6m) Resolution Soil Moisture over Forests and Mountains Using Airborne and Satellite Radar | Seungbum Kim, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab |
| 3:30 pm | Poster Session | |
| Time (ET) | Topic | Speaker/Moderator |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Forest Focus Session: Why We Need Forest Soil Moisture Monitoring* | ||
| Session 8: Challenges for Monitoring Forest Soil Moisture – Defining What & How to Monitor | ||
| Session 9: Panel Discussion: Methods and Approaches for Gathering Soil Moisture Data | ||
| Session 10: Panel Discussion: What Do Land Managers Need Soil Moisture Data For? | ||
| Session 11: Modeling | ||
| Session 12: Closing Comments, Outcomes, and Next Steps | ||
| 8:45 am | Welcome | Cynthia West, USFS Northern Research Station Director, and Forest Products Lab Director |
| 9:00 am | What We Hope to Achieve and How We Got Here: Follow-Up from the 2018 Monitoring Forest Soil Moisture in a Changing World Meeting | Rich Pouyat, Scientist Emeritus, USFS |
| 9:15 am | Current Knowledge/Data, Gaps, and Needs | Russell Briggs, SUNY ESF |
| 9:30 am | Relevancy of Forest Soil Moisture Monitoring in the Context of the NCSMMN Strategy Publication (recording not available) | Steven Quiring, Ohio State University |
| 9:45 am | Existing and Near Future Potential for Forest Soil Moisture Monitoring | Stephanie Connolly, USDA Forest Service |
| 10:15 - 11:00 am | In Situ Monitoring | Claudia Cotton, USDA Forest Service Daniel Boone National Forest |
| Remotely-Sensed data | Mike Cosh, USDA ARS | |
| Modeling | Tyson Ochsner, Oklahoma State University | |
| Citizen Science / Conditions Monitoring | Peter Goble, Colorado State University | |
| 11:00 – 12:00 am | Wildfire (Modeling, forecasting, risk ratings) | Zach Holden, USFS Region 1 Montana (virtual) |
| Drought (Forecasting, status, rankings) | Mark Brusberg, USDA Chief Meteorologist | |
| Forest Health and Management (Soil moisture links to resiliency, harvest-trafficability, drought and flood risk assessments, adaptive management strategies) | John Kabrick, USFS Northern Research Station | |
| Geomorphologic Hazard Prediction (Soil moisture as an indicator for mast wasting, landslides, floods) | Lynne Chastain-Carpenter, USFS Geologic Hazards Coordinator, Washington Office (VIRTUAL) | |
| Urban Settings (Urban grasslands and forests, how to implement) | Ian Yesilonis, US Forest Service Northern Research Station | |
| 1:00 pm | Overview of Existing Modeling Activities | Carlos Quintero, ORISE Fellow |
| 1:15 pm | Data Availability & Sensor Technologies: What Data Do Models Need? | Noemi Vergopolan, Princeton University |
| 1:30 pm | Case Study: Linking the Dynamic Soil Survey and Ecohydrology at the Sierra Ancha Experimental Forest | Salli Dymond, Northern Arizona University (virtual) |
| 1:45 pm | Discussion | |
| 2:15 pm |
| Stephanie Connolly, Moderator |
Workshop Organizing Committee
- Todd Caldwell, U.S. Geological Survey
- Michael Cosh, U.S. Department of Agriculture
- John Bolten, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Stephanie Connolly, U.S. Forest Service, USDA
- Trent Ford, University of Illinois
- Peter Goble, Colorado State University
- Scott Jones, Utah State University
- Steven Quiring, The Ohio State University
- Marina Skumanich, NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System
- Briana Wyatt, Texas A&M University
For more information, please contact Michael Cosh (michael.cosh@usda.gov) or soil.moisture@noaa.gov.
