We provide an overview of the Rur hydrological observatory, which is the main observational platform of the TERENO (TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories) Eifel/Lower Rhine Valley Observatory. The Rur catchment area exhibits distinct gradients in altitude, climate, land use, soil properties, and geology. The Eifel National Park is situated in the southern part of the Rur catchment and serves as a reference site for the hydrological observatory. We present information on general physical characteristics of the Rur catchment and describe the main features of the multi-scale and multi-compartment monitoring framework. In addition, we also present some examples of the ongoing interdisciplinary research that aims to advance the understanding of complex hydrological processes and interactions within the Rur catchment.
Abstract. The Rollesbroich headwater catchment located in western Germany is a densely instrumented hydrological observatory and part of the TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories) initiative. The measurements acquired in this observatory present a comprehensive data set that contains key hydrological fluxes in addition to important hydrological states and properties. Meteorological data (i.e., precipitation, air temperature, air humidity, radiation components, and wind speed) are continuously recorded and actual evapotranspiration is measured using the eddy covariance technique. Runoff is measured at the catchment outlet with a gauging station. In addition, spatiotemporal variations in soil water content and temperature are measured at high resolution with a wireless sensor network (SoilNet). Soil physical properties were determined using standard laboratory procedures from samples taken at a large number of locations in the catchment. This comprehensive data set can be used to validate remote sensing retrievals and hydrological models, to improve the understanding of spatial temporal dynamics of soil water content, to optimize data assimilation and inverse techniques for hydrological models, and to develop upscaling and downscaling procedures of soil water content information. The complete data set is freely available online (http://www.tereno.net, doi:10.5880/ TERENO.2016.001, doi:10.5880/TERENO.2016.004, doi:10.5880/TERENO.2016 and additionally referenced by three persistent identifiers securing the long-term data and metadata availability.
The worldwide Sensor Web comprises observation data from diverse sources. Each data provider may process and assess datasets differently before making them available online. This information is often invisible to end users. Therefore, publishing observation data with quality descriptions is vital as it helps users to assess the suitability of data for their applications. It is also important to capture contextual information concerning data quality such as provenance to trace back incorrect data to its origins. In the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)'s Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework, there is no sufficiently and practically applicable approach how these aspects can be systematically represented and made accessible. This paper presents Q-SOS-an extension of the OGC's Sensor Observation Service (SOS) that supports retrieval of observation data together with quality descriptions. These descriptions are represented in an observation data model covering various aspects of data quality assessment. The service and the data model have been developed based on open standards and open source tools, and are productively being used to share observation data from the TERENO observatory infrastructure. We discuss the advantages of deploying the presented solutions from data provider and consumer viewpoints. Enhancements applied to the related open-source developments are also introduced.
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