News & Events

2023 National Soil Moisture Workshop

Aug 14

August 14, 2023 - August 17, 2023

Beltsville, MD

A seedling grows out of the soil in the rain, representing soil moisture.

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 Award Recipient: Dr. Tyson Ochsner

Marina Skumanich presents Tyson Ochsner with the Soil Moisture Community Award at the 2023 National Soil Moisture Workshop. Photo credit: Michael Cosh, USDA ARS.

As a highlight of the workshop, the workshop organizing committee and the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (NCSMMN) Executive Committee awarded Dr. Tyson Ochsner the 2023 Soil Moisture Community 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 Executive Committee for several years.

The Soil Moisture Community 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.

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
9:00 am	Welcome and Overview USDA Perspectives on the Value of Soil Moisture Observations	Marina Skumanich, NIDIS Mark Brusberg, USDA
Session 1: Soil Moisture Networks \| Moderator: Marina Skumanich
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
Session 2: Soil Moisture Networks (Continued): Drought \| Moderator: Todd Caldwell
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
Lunch Discussion: Soil Moisture Data Quality and Metadata Guidance Documents \| Moderator: Marina Skumanich, NIDIS
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
Session 3: Data Quality \| Moderator: Todd Caldwell
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
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)
Session 4: Applications \| Moderator: John Bolten
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
Session 5: Applications, including Remote-Sensing Applications \| Moderator: Peter Goble
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
Session 6: Remote-Sensing Applications (Continued) \| Moderator: Briana Wyatt
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
*Session 7: Forest Soil Moisture Monitoring \| Moderator: Scott Jones**
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*
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
Session 8: Challenges for Monitoring Forest Soil Moisture – Defining What & How to Monitor
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
Session 9: Panel Discussion: Methods and Approaches for Gathering Soil Moisture Data
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
Session 10: Panel Discussion: What Do Land Managers Need Soil Moisture Data For?
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
Session 11: Modeling
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
Session 12: Closing Comments, Outcomes, and Next Steps
2:15 pm	How do we develop a framework for forest soil monitoring that addresses previously discussed challenges while being consistent with the current NCSMMN Framework? How can forests and grasslands fit into the existing soil moisture networks that focus on agricultural lands? What product should come out of this workshop?	Stephanie Connolly, Moderator

2023 National Soil Moisture Workshop

2023 Soil Moisture Community Award Recipient: Dr. Tyson Ochsner

Workshop Agenda & Presentation Recordings

Monday, August 14: Field School (No Recordings Available)

Time (ET)

Tuesday, August 15: General Session Day 1

Wednesday, August 16: General Session Day 2

Thursday, August 17: General Session Day 3

Workshop Organizing Committee

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